Sean Shanahan

Kerlin Gallery, Dublin

The board is sound. There are some minor scuff marks along the right edge and two small surface stains and some very light surface dirt otherwise in good overall condition. Under ultraviolet light, there appear to be no signs of retouching. Unframed.
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

In leaving the raw surface of the board visible on only three sides of the present work, Shanahan creates what Mel Gooding has termed a 'discreet dynamic of imbalance' (Gooding, quote in Vidar, Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane, exh.cat., 2002, p.9). Whilst the three stripes delineate the rich colour, the absence of a fourth border along the right edge, the eastern or Orient edge,  crucially releases the dense tones of the composition so that they interact directly with the surrounding space (see also lot 79).

According to Gooding, the key to understanding the artist's inspiration for the configuration, lies in the nature of his studio in Sartirana at the time where the only natural light to hit his working wall fell from left to the right; 'as if that open edge at the right of the paintings was a sign, an implication, of the inevitable dying away of the contained colour as the intensity of light naturally decreases on its passage from its source towards infinity and darkness' (Gooding, ibid., p.9).