Sean Scully: Human

Sean Scully: Human is a monograph dedicated to the great Irish-American artist and to Human, his new exhibition project for San Giorgio Maggiore Abbey in Venice.

"My work is an attempt to release the spirit" — Sean Scully

Published on the occasion of the exhibition in the historic church of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice, the volume gathers recent works and new, unseen pieces by the celebrated abstract artist who has created a series of new sculptures, paintings, drawings, and watercolour works. These pieces are directly inspired by the monks' Abbey of San Giorgio Maggiore, their vast illuminated manuscript collections, and the 16th-century Benedictine church. The works are instantly recognisable by Scully’s visual vocabulary of horizontal and vertical stripes, reflecting fifty years of constant refining.

The fulcrum of the catalogue is the new and impressive Opulent Ascension, a site-specific sculpture over ten meters high, constructed from stacked frames, each wrapped in rich and varying colours of felt. The different colours visually suggest the steps of a monumental, ascending ladder leading the eye and spirit heavenwards. This piece reveals the genius of the artist, always able to surprise us with new stylistic formulas and symbolic references. It is a soaring, charismatic work that catalyses the observer, leading them to the core of the artist’s creative idea and embodying Scully’s conviction that his work can serve as a conduit between the physical world we can see and a transcendent one to which the soul aspires.