Timothy Taylor is pleased to present Animal Portraits, an exhibition of new paintings by Sean Landers. The artist’s debut presentation with the gallery since the announcement of his representation in 2023 will feature eight canvases from a new series of animal portraits. These works reflect his evolving relationship to the many dimensions of making art.
In his recent paintings, Landers surrounds wild animals, many of them native to the UK, with texts revealing the artist’s sense of existential awareness. Rendered with sharp, careful detail, his creatures-a grey wolf, a red fox, a cougar-gaze back at the viewer or look knowingly beyond them. Each animal stands within an idyllic landscape punctuated by vernacular signposts or aspen trees bearing telling inscriptions. In Its Own Reward (Great Horned Owl) (all paintings 2024), an exquisite horned owl perches on the branch of a tree where a series of texts has been carved. “We exist so briefly…the privilege of life is its own reward.” For Landers, this painting reflects his state of mind in the current moment; reflecting on the dynamics of his more than thirty-year career, he finds deep pleasure in the process of painting with virtuosity and without posturing.