Wall of light grey pink

Sean Scully
Britain/United States of America
30 June 1945

Wall of light grey pink
2010
oil on aluminium
Currently on display, Gallery 17
Place made
United States of America
Medium
oil on aluminium
Dimensions
216.0 x 190.0 cm
Credit line
Gift of James and Jacqui Erskine through the Art Gallery of South Australia Foundation 2016. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Accession number
20162P25
Signature and date
Signed and dated verso c.l., black fibre tipped pen, "Sean Scully 6.2010".
Provenance
Created by Sean Scully, America, 2010; [Timothy Taylor Gallery, London, United Kingdom]; purchased by James Erskine; gifted to the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 2016.
Media category
Painting
Collection area
American paintings
Copyright
Courtesy the artist and Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh

  • Sean Scully, an Irish-born American-based abstract painter, is known for his compositions of layered blocks or stripes of colour and textured surfaces.

    The monumental painting Wall of light grey pink, 2010, is an experimentation with colour and light, whereby Scully built up layers of grey and pink oil paint in varying degrees of light and darkness. This painting is part of an ongoing series originating from works on paper completed in 1998 during trips to Mexico – a destination that for almost two decades had influenced the artist’s approach to painting. The interlocking horizontal and vertical blocks of colour in the series were inspired by the patterns and rhythms of light and shadow that ripple across Mayan stacked-stone walls, studied by him during his trips. The Wall of light series is characterised by luminosity of the palette and the rich and subtle layering of colour.

    Leigh Robb, Curator of Contemporary Art



  • Sean Scully is considered a leading international abstract painter known for his compositions of layered blocks of colour and textured surfaces. Born in Dublin, Ireland in 1945, Scully grew up in South London and began painting in the late 1960s before migrating to New York City in 1975.


    This commanding painting is part of a major ongoing series, Wall of Light, which evolved from small watercolours on paper completed during trips to Mexico – a destination that for almost two decades has influenced the artist’s approach to painting. The interlocking horizontal and vertical blocks of colour in the series were inspired by the patterns and rhythms of light and shadow that play across Mayan stacked stone ruins in the Yucata. An experimentation with colour and light, in this painting Scully has built up diffuse layers of grey and pink oil paint, in varying degrees of light and darkness, on an aluminium surface.


    Scully does not shy away from grand Romantic ideals and the potential for personal revelation and enlightenment through art. With his paintings, he strives to combine, as he has said, ‘intimacy with monumentality’. 

    Leigh Robb, Curator of Contemporary Art 

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