SEAN SCULLY – KIND OF RED
2014-07-08Since the 1970s, Sean Scully has gained international prominence as one of the most admired and significant contemporary abstract painters working today. Monumental in scale, the works featured in this exhibition demonstrate a mature confidence and unwavering drive for experimentation. Indeed the focal point of the show, Kind of Red, 2013, a powerful five-panel installation on aluminium, is unlike any work previously made by the artist.
Music, particularly jazz, has always played an inspirational part in Scully’s practice and Kind of Red references the seminal 1959 Miles Davis album Kind of Blue, which Scully absorbed while making these paintings in his German studio. Davis’ album was pioneering for its exploration of the possibilities of modal jazz, using musical modes while keeping chordal movement to the minimum and allowing the music to billow and stretch more freely, promoting a feeling of space and calm. Similarly, by repeating the motif of twinned blocks of reds, greys and blacks in differing orientations across five separate panels, Scully establishes an expansive, pulsating rhythm. As Richard Williams observes, “…just as Davis worked on the modes that were to replace conventional harmonic structures throughout most of Kind of Blue, so Scully devised the format and the ground…on which the Kind of Red paintings were to be made. The bare metal of the working surface remains exposed beyond the edges of the painted area; in two of the pieces, drips run down towards the bottom edge”.
Opposite – Kind of Red, 2013
Exhibition runs through to July 26th, 2014
Timothy Taylor Gallery
15 Carlos Place
London
W1K 2EX
