Sean Scully Quotes & Sayings

When I got into art school, I thought it was paradise. I wanted to be an artist so much that I was really driven and nothing could stop me. — Sean Scully

I look at my paintings for a very long time before letting them out of my studio. I like to get on the treadmill and look around at all of my paintings while I exercise. I try to stare them down to make them reveal their weaknesses. If they reveal weaknesses, they get repainted. — Sean Scully

I was always artistic - right from childhood - but my love of painting came a bit later. It followed my love of music. — Sean Scully

The power of a painting has to come from the inside out, not the outside in. It's not just an image. It's an image with a body and that body has to contain its spirit ... What's behind it decides everything. How it starts will define how it ends. — Sean Scully

I work on stretched linen canvas, sized so that the surface already has a sense of tension when I begin. It is a very rich and reactive surface. I begin by drawing on the canvas with a kind of loose line, very simply and freely. I paint very thinly, which allows me to change the drawing if I want to. — Sean Scully

I do believe abstraction is and was meant to embody deep emotion. I believe that's its job, in the history of art. — Sean Scully