Mexico La Cina 1983

Editor: Here we have Sean Scully's "Mexico La Cina," painted in 1983 using watercolor. It is composed of stacked and aligned bars, some vibrant, some muted. The repetition creates a compelling visual rhythm, wouldn’t you agree? What draws your attention most when you look at it? Curator: I’m primarily engaged by the relationships between the individual colored bars. The work reduces painting to its most elemental components: color, shape, and line. Observe the tactile quality created by the watercolor medium, allowing the materiality of the paint itself to be foregrounded. How do the horizontal elements affect your reading of the composition, disrupting what otherwise might feel like an exercise in pure verticality? Editor: The horizontals do ground it somehow. They add stability and keep the verticals from feeling too chaotic or simply floating away. Do you see a particular pattern, or is the arrangement arbitrary? Curator: Pattern, I think, is too strong a word. The arrangement resists any simple, overarching system. But the slight variations in color, width, and placement prevent the image from dissolving into complete randomness. There's a tension between order and disorder which energizes the visual field. What is your reading of the negative space in the composition? Editor: It seems quite deliberate – like another shape interacting with the coloured bars. I guess without it the work wouldn't exist. It is something as important as the bars and blocks themselves. Curator: Precisely. It is the ground against which the figure is perceived and the condition for readability. Editor: This close look at structure and composition makes me see how Scully achieves such depth using such simple forms. Curator: Indeed. By analyzing formal elements and their relationships, we've opened ourselves up to the painting's underlying logic and affective power.