Aran 2005

Sean Scully made "Aran," a black and white photograph, maybe while thinking about walls, and what keeps us in, or out. What strikes me is the texture. The photograph documents a hand-built stone wall of layered flat stones, but the way it’s shot, the wall appears almost as a painting. Look at how the light hits each stone differently, creating a range of grays that gives the surface a real visual depth. The dark lines between the stones are like confident marks, defining each element while holding them together. The stones on top are upright, like little spikes, kind of daring you to touch. Scully, later famous for his striped paintings, often talked about architecture as a source, so seeing this wall, it’s hard not to think about those later paintings. It reminds me too of Agnes Martin's grids. Both artists share an interest in basic structures, exploring repetition and subtle variation within those simple frameworks. Like them, Scully shows us that limitation can be incredibly freeing.