Sean Gall

Education
1999 MFA Art, California Institute of the Arts, CalArts

1995 BFA Drawing & Painting / Intermedia, California State University Long Beach

Awards
2007 Armory Center for the Arts Teaching Fellowship

Selected exhibitions

Solo shows
2013 “Four Drawings by Sean Gall” Unlikely Stories

2009 “Atmospheres and Mindscapes” Project 210 Gallery Pasadena, California

1999 “Just Kickin’ It” MFA Thesis Show, California Institute of the Arts, CalArts

Art Fairs:
2018 Studio Lisboa 018, Lisbon, Portugal

Group shows:
2019 “DotSandPlastic” Madrid, Spain

2014 “Esultarte” Galleria Palazzo Velli, Rome, Italy

2013 “Letting Go” Hermon La Prada’s International Flat Files, Los Angeles

2011 “Tomkins Project West: Works on Paper” Dan Graham Gallery, Los Angeles

2010 “Mastodon Maze” Mastodon Mesa, Los Angeles

2009 “S(t)ay” Sumer Camp’s Project Projects, Los Angeles

2008 “Staff Show” Los Angeles County Museum of Art

2007 "Natural Geographic" Norma Desmond Productions, Culver City

2006 “Compari, this show was not sponsored by” Park Projects, Los Angeles. Curated by Luciano Perna

2006 “Staff Show” Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Bibliography:

TBC/MAG 1 The Billboard Creative
November, 2018
https://tbc.shorthandstories.com/issue1/index.html

An integral aspect to my art making is walking, exploring, and getting lost. Whether in my previous home in Los Angeles, my mother’s home in the wild western landscape of Ireland, or my adopted city of Rome, I utilize wandering as a stimulus for visualizing ideas.

My earlier work mixed elements on canvas of drawn ink and painted patterns that considered themes of urban sprawl. My current series, Damnatio Memoriae, is a collection of abstracted text works conceived after many months of meandering Rome’s neighborhoods and observing graffiti of opposing political parties and football clubs, altered to obscure or change their original, intended meaning.

I felt these contemporary alterations evoked the ancient custom known as Damnatio Memoriae, an ancient Roman practice wherein inscriptions, sculptures, and even civilizations in the case of Carthage, were wiped away by an opponent and erased from memory. Roman leaders who fell out of power found their name chiseled from public inscriptions and their likeness on marble busts morphed into their successor, but with enough of the original left to serve as a public reminder of their ruination.

I borrow from these altered graffiti and inscriptions, both ancient and contemporary, by drawing text of idioms that I have heard, read, or has written. The text is abstracted, but still legible, through the use of formal elements of color and shape that creates a web of flora that mimics ancient damnatio memoriae and sometimes juxtaposes a message of ruin with elements of beauty.

For sales, commissions, collaborations and inquiries:

seangall22@gmail.com
+39 327 001 9502