09.06.2023-12.02.2023
SEAN SHANAHAN
Plainsong
This exhibition at Espace Muraille is Sean Shanahan's first solo show in Switzerland. It is the fruit of the artist's in-depth and ongoing research into the relationship between the pictorial surface, the three-dimensional support and the architectural elements of the space in which his works are presented.
This new artistic process began in 2016 with the exhibition Seven Last Words (Galleria San Fedele, Milano), at which Shanahan's work for the first time consciously shaped the museum complex of the San Fedele church in which it was installed. Rather than limiting the space or simply interacting with its architectural features, Seven Last Words demonstrated that Shanahan's monochrome and polychrome paintings have become site-specific objects, shaped, both in form and color, according to the context in which they are exhibited.
It was not until 2021, however, that Shanahan definitively set his sights on polychrome painting. The exhibition Sudden Time (Villa e Collezione Panza, Varese) marked a clear shift for the artist, who abandoned his initial predilection for a strictly monochrome approach and began to imagine new, expressive combinations and juxtapositions of color, all of which emerged in response to the lighting and architecture of the exhibition space.
Image
Sean Shanahan, Hum, 2023
Huile sur MDF, 70x70 cm
photo : Andrea Rossettti / Héctor Chico