abstract art amidst the old masters

Only in Oxford could one of the 38 university colleges, Christ Church, have purpose built a small gallery to show and protect donations of over 300 paintings and almost 2000 drawings. There is a strong theme of 14-18th century Italian paintings featuring masters such as Filippino Lippi, Tintoretto, Veronese, Annibale Carracci and Salvator Rosa. There is an overwhelming sense of ornate gold frames, with myriad biblical stories.

But for 3 months this summer, Sean Scully has dispersed 11 abstract paintings and 33 prints amongst the greats. His paintings stand out for their simplicity of coloured rectangles, but they fit in well with the complexity of colours. Strangely, the impression from very strong coloured abstract paintings forced me to look in more detail at the intricate old masters and revisit the stories they were describing. There was an unexpected dialogue across centuries and geography.

Although he was born in Dublin in 1945, Sean lives and works in New York and his abstract art combined colour, rectangles and stripes in a way that transcends words. He overpaints, and cuts out and inserts small canvases within larger ones. But somehow there is a clean simplicity and a clever juxtaposition of colour. I was totally impressed and will definitely seek out more of his work.