SEAN LANDERS
2018-03-26If the early works were considered Landers’ antidote to the aesthetics of a hyper-inflated art industry of the 1980s, these twelve new paintings (approximately 36.25 x 27.5 inches, and 71.5 x 55.5 inches) are more elegiac. The paint is delicately applied on pre-printed yellow canvas; each touch is clearly a mark in script. Disguised as ‘finished’ bozzetti, these works seem to further illuminate the private thoughts Landers unleashed almost 30 years ago. Not only do the new paintings arrest the artist’s stream-of-consciousness, but they also elevate his meditations on mortality, our current political climate, and the success of a middle-aged artist—while simultaneously injecting new urgency and amplifying scale.
Parallel to Landers first solo show at Petzel’s uptown location, the gallery will premiere a suite of new tree paintings at The Art Show, Park Avenue Armory. Some, if not all, of the quotes on the yellow legal pad paintings will find another form of expression as “carvings” in the bark of Landers’ painted trees. As if the thoughts in the gallery show were still a preliminary language (or nascent state of mind) here they are ‘realized’ as images.
Opposite – The Eternal Dawning Of Now, 2017
Exhibition runs through to April 14th, 2018
Petzel Gallery
35 E 67th Street
NY 10065
New York
