[July 2015, Barcelona, artist studio]
The Irish-born, naturalised American painter Sean Scully (Dublin, 1945) celebrated his
70th birthday by inaugurating what he himself recognises as the most important work
of his career, the Sean Scully Art Space at Santa Cecília de Montserrat. An
exceptional art collection, made up of triptychs, large-format paintings, stained glass
windows and frescoes, in a privileged setting consecrated by the centuries, which
together with the Rothko Chapel in Houston and the Matisse Chapel in Saint Paul du
Vence is today claimed as one of the spaces of international reference in the
confluence between spirituality and contemporary painting. We met the artist at his
studio on Carrer de Girona in Barcelona so that he could explain the process of
working on the Sean Scully Art Space in Montserrat, which began a decade ago and
ended last 2 July with the inauguration of the art space.
Albert Mercadé: Your art is eminently abstract but at the same time it refers to nature, as
shown in many of your series, inspired by your native Ireland. What connection do you think
exists between the work you have created at the Sean Scully Art Space in Santa Cecília
Montserrat and its natural environment?
Sean Scully: When my wife and I first arrived in Barcelona, to escape the noise of the city,
we often went to Montserrat. We would lose ourselves on the different paths of the
mountain, which clearly has a great presence and uniqueness. Although it is volcanic, it is
not terrifying, it is a soft and gentle mountain, which gives no sense of danger. From up
there, the view is beautiful and of great spiritual presence. Furthermore, it is impossible for
an artist to renounce their own soul. We are made of what we live and feel during the first
eight years of life. My connection with the world’s matter is very strong. I’m not a mystic, like
Rothko, I’m more between Rothko and Picasso because I have a great sense of matter, of
the brutality of life. Yes, I recognise that we are made of matter, we are a body but a body
with the ambition to become spiritual. My work is a combination of both ambitions. I want to
grasp the light of spirituality but also the weight of life, matter and nature. There is a painting
in Santa Cecília — Landline Cecília — in which the influence of the sea can be appreciated.
Landline refers to the horizon, the line between the sky and the land, between the sea and
the shore. It is a reference to this line that has fascinated humans since the origins of the
world.
Regarding the work Landline Cecília that you mention, there is a visibly Matisse-like
component, of joie de vivre. How do you justify this vital attitude in a spiritual context? SS: I
have a strong connection with Cézanne. He was a painter who persistently painted the same
mountain. I am also an artist of repetition. There is something humble in this attitude. It is an
art of dedication rather than invention. Repetition allows us to achieve depth over time.
Cézanne once said, “In the end, all I have is my small emotion”. As an artist, he was quite
systematic, mechanical and geometric. So am I. I have a good sense of structure but like
Cézanne, mine is an emotional art; I want to combine both. To reach the emotion I need to
go through the structure.
This sense of repetition refers to a specific tradition within modernity, claimed by artists such
as Morandi and Ramon Gaya. Repetition unites art and spirituality: the painter insists on
forms like the monk in prayer. What is spirituality according to Sean Scully?
SS: I think of the world as a family. For me, there is no difference between human beings.
Every human being has more things in common with others than differences. The most
important for me is what unites us. That’s why I work with basic forms, in a language that
anyone can recognise; maybe they don’t understand it but they do recognise it. I could be a
Hindu because Hindus are interested in all religions. Each human being is sacred and has a
soul, perhaps with the exception of Hitler! That’s why we all have a sense of spirituality. It is
a reality that we experience when we travel the world. In any country, you will find the
experience of humanity.
“Santa Cecília is a suitable space to display my art
from a place of modesty.”
As you have said on occasion, “spirituality begins in simplicity”, a concept that links your art
with the Romanesque architecture of Santa Cecília, which is both intimate and transcendent.
The location of the church of Santa Cecília, on the mountain, is incredible, splendid, like a
small miracle. The architecture is rustic, raw, stark and plain. There is a humility in the
temple that appeals to me. I have a wonderful feeling when I see this ancient building. It is
not a building of power, which would make me uncomfortable. It is innocent, humble and
silent.
Santa Cecília is a suitable space to display my art from a place of modesty. At first, I thought
of creating a single unitary theme but in the end, I decided to represent different interests of
my work. So, in one corner we have a tragic artwork, Doric Nyx, dedicated to the ancient
goddess of the night, the deepest part of the night. But next to it, is Cecília, in which I
wanted to represent a sense of joy. Cecília is an artwork with windows. It is possible to look
at a wall on which a view opens up, with a deep sense of openness. Below, there is a
rectangle the colour of the earth: it is the weight of life. Above, the window is a clearer
reality, in the manner of Morandi, with humble and muted colours.
The upper part of Cecília looks like a musical score, a tribute, I understand, to the patron saint
of this church, the patron saint of music. An art that also inspires your painting. We find
rhythms, counterpoints and fugues. What influence does music have on your work? Music has
always been a very important part of my life because my mother was a singer. After WWII
there was a tradition of vaudeville entertainment in England, which was a comprehensive
show with magicians, gymnasts, singers, etc. There were many in London and my mother
performed in them to bring home some money. Later, at the age of around 16, I had a rock
band but then I decided to leave music in favour of art because it seemed deeper to me. I
wanted to influence culture, not popular culture. I wanted to excel in spiritual culture and
leave a gift to the world.
In my work, you can recognise a great sense of rhythm, albeit geometric. The lines in
Cecília, for example, are like a guitar; you can play it visually. There are visual sounds in my
painting; my favourite instrument is the cello and, in particular, the music of Bach and the
contemporary music of Arvo Pärt (Tabula Rasa). In geometric art, we typically find shapes,
squares or lines. But in my work, you can find a great sense of repetition, like in Doric Nyx,
which has repetitions similar to Bach’s music. An intimate music of two or three instruments,
which is usually what I like the most.
Schopenhauer believed there to be a secret alliance between music and abstraction.
People have no problem with music without words but they do have a problem with abstract
painting. If each thing were equal to the other there shouldn’t be a problem. Most art in the
world is abstract. In other cultures that don’t show the face of God, like in Morocco, art is
abstract. The most important building in Spain, the Alhambra in Granada, where I have had
an exhibition, is an abstract experience. People love it. That’s why I believe that there is a
path to abstract art and that it is not so difficult. Critics have made it difficult. But nowadays
there are no obstacles. You simply have to appreciate painting like abstract music: like jazz
or an opera in a different language but which we recognise in the emotion.
“My life is a journey towards the light.”
Your concept of abstraction goes against Mondrian’s purism, against what Ortega i Gasset
called “the dehumanisation of art”. You, in contrast, suggest a rehumanisation of abstraction.
How do you meet this challenge?
I want to give abstraction back to people. A friend of mine told me one day that I create
popular abstraction. My job is to make it accessible to people. I come from poverty. Deep
poverty. I’m not talking about not having much money, I’m talking about not having a house
or food… when I was little, we lived on the streets. That’s why I always identify with people. I
talk to anyone, I don’t discriminate. There is no order of importance. I would like to create a
body of work accessible to them. I don’t know if it’s possible, it’s an aspiration.
Holly is a painful work, made shortly after the death of your mother. Why did you choose this
work as the first to exhibit in Santa Cecília?
My point of reference was a work dedicated to my mother because I am a product of her.
She was an incredibly strong woman. I painted a series of paintings for her, which I called
Holly. The colours are vital and sad at the same time. There is a great sense of meditation.
Holly has strength, it is demanding and severe. The windows were painted in Barcelona. I
have photos of these painted pieces here in this workshop. The large steel panel that
supports the 14 paintings was made outside, together with craftsmen, as a conceptual piece
because you have to imagine it and trust in the other workers. I liked the idea of the wall
and making something very strong and heavy. I had imagined a huge iron wall, made of
metal, but with windows and grafts. An open wall. It weighs as much as a car. It’s like an
object painting on an ancient stone building. There is a correlation. Of course, the colour is
also symbolic. It is a journey from Earth to heaven.
Is tragedy a component of spirituality?
Buddhists have a great sense of joy, without tragedy. I admire them greatly but I’m from
Ireland, you know? A broken country. It’s impossible to make someone else’s art. In the end,
the soul works in an honest way, we can’t renounce it. My life is a journey towards the light.
Now I have a wife, I have a son, who is a miracle, an indescribable jewel. This is indivisible
from the work I am doing, which has recently become less careful and less solemn; except
for Doric, which is very serious and severe. I could have spent my life on this path but it’s
not mine. I want to represent other dimensions of the spirit: tragedy but not only tragedy,
also love, pleasure, hope and positive challenges. In the church, we can find different
works. The small paintings like Untitled have great irony because they are very innocent:
they are like a surprise. This is art without meaning, which contrasts with Doric and Holly,
who face each other. They are the two big columns that support the rest of the Santa
Cecília collection. The rest has a sense of hope and joy.
At Santa Cecília you have also, for the first time in your career, done three fresco paintings. You
once said that you would have liked to paint in the manner of mediaeval painters such as Giotto
or Cimabue. How did you feel painting the frescoes?
Cimabue is one of my heroes. But he experimented with materials and his work is now very
degraded, like the Crucifix in Assisi. The feeling when you do a fresco is very different.
There is a great sense of danger because if you make a mistake, you can’t take it away, you
are committed to the church. The sense of danger is interesting but it makes me nervous.
But I like the fact that it’s flat, humble, simple and indivisible from the church. It’s forever and
ever if it lasts…
You have also designed a set of crosses for the altar. What meaning do they have for you?
At Santa Cecília I wanted to make a space for everyone. I didn’t want to create any
obstacles for anyone. Anyone, with two or three legs, green, white or black, it’s all the same
to me. Everyone can and must be able to come. I wasn’t thinking of any symbolism. I was
just doing paintings by Sean Scully. But in the end, I thought about how we are in a church,
with a history that I respect a lot. I decided to make two, very abstract and free, crosses,
that refer to the past of the church but without closing it too much. In New York I once made
some crosses on the floor, like a work of art based on the books of the Koran, to unify
religions. But nobody wanted to show it because they were afraid. I think it would be
wonderful because the future of the world is the unification of religions. The future is
unification, we cannot escape it. It is the only hope we have as humanity.
You often confess yourself to be a fighter for life. This can also be extrapolated to the field of
painting. You began painting at the height of conceptual art in the United States, even so, over
time you have managed to establish yourself as one of the world’s leading exponents of abstract
painting. What do you think the meaning of painting is today?
The return to painting will depend on the new generations. If young people cannot be
influenced, the tradition will die. In England, painting is in danger and also in France. But
coincidentally, right now there is a great interest in reviving painting on the part of young
people, especially in the United States, as demonstrated in a recent exhibition at the MoMA.
Also, in Germany and China. Most of the interest in conceptual art is in Northern Europe. It
can also be seen in Barcelona but we know the city is always ten years behind. Most of the
painting in the world today is figurative but I think that abstraction will follow because
figuration is the first thing that enters through the eyes, after that comes abstraction, which
is more refined. It is an art that needs knowledge and experience. In China, they don’t have
this problem. Painting has been with us for forty thousand years and it must be with us in
the future. I don’t envisage the possibility of it disappearing.
La traducció d’aquest text ha disposat d’un ajut de l’Institut Ramon Llull
albert mercadé 