Sean Scully biography in Biographies from the artzine on artrepublic.com

Sean Scully was born in Dublin in 1945, but grew up in London, where his family moved when he was still a child. From an early age Scully wanted to do something in his life that was not ordinary and decided that this could be achieved by becoming an artist. An American citizen since 1983, Scully lives and works in New York, London, and Barcelona. 

Scully's work is heavily influenced by the American and European traditions, embodied in the figures of Mondrian and Matisse in Europe, and Pollock and Rothko in America. How to combine these different influences has remained the basic question of Scully's work, to which he gave slightly different answers throughout the decades.

During the 70's, when he moved to New York and set up a studio, his work is dominated by a minimalism that is reflected in the rigid geometric precision of his art. In the 80's we can see his work move towards much more freedom in their composition. This art is characterised by marks of thick brushstrokes and textured surfaces, yet still retaining the stripe, a constant presence in Scully's art.

More recently Sean Scully has been drawn towards the "visually, edgy" potential of severe abstraction and the emotional power of certain works, like Frank Stella's black paintings and Agnes Martin's grids. 

He has also explored the possibilities of photography and this medium became an important source of inspiration in his later work. We can see the mutual influence between his photographic series "wall of light" and his paintings, in which fading walls and cracked surfaces show a decadent beauty and the contradiction of nature and life.

"To become an artist was the most adventurous, in a sense the most dangerous, the most insecure, and, potentially, the most profound thing I could do" Sean Scully.