Sean O’Farrell studied BA (Hons) Fine Art at Staffordshire University and is a recent graduate of the MA Fin e Art course at Arts University Bournemouth.

“Screen” is one of a number of paintings made in response to looking at a Turner seascape in the Tate Britain. Turner had depicted light shining through clouds in what appeared to be one long straight brush stroke. The paint is thick and the brush has left corrugations in the paint. These ridges of paint reflect the gallery lighting directing the eye along the lines. I found myself moving forward and back, left and right and the painting changed as I did so.

I am fascinated by the experience of looking at art, the meeting between the art object and the viewer and the environment of the encounter. My aim is to activate the viewer, making the experience of looking at painting more akin to that of looking at sculpture or architecture. The reflection of the gallery lighting on the glossy paint surface helps to achieve this.
“Screen” was made with one brush stroke running left to right. I make my own brushes, which are longer than the width of the canvas. The bulk of the time in the studio is given over to rehearsal on smaller canvases, the making, priming and preparation of the larger canvas and then the initial laying on of the paint, I consider this preparation too.
Although the way I work is quite physical, gesture is pared down to a single sweep of the brush. One of the themes I am interested in is how colours can be “knitted” or “woven” together to make an image. The brush does not apply the paint, the brush is used to mix, move and shape the paint on the surface, meaning the final image is created in one motion. Inevitably, chance plays a role and the final image is unpredictable.
I hope the final image is unnameable and always just out of reach but that there is the suggestion of an object observered, a close up of a viscose curtain or blanket or part of a landscape perhaps.
I like paintings that attract attention, hold it, make you want to know more, but deny interpretation. The contradiction that they are presented to view but are deceptive, a surface that we know to be flat but gives the illusion of shape and depth, a surface that both conceals and reveals.