November 19 - January 7, 2023
From Various Small Fires:
“Various Small Fires is proud to present an exhibition of new paintings by New York artist Sean Landers. On view in Dallas, Animal Portraits is the artist’s first solo presentation in Texas.
Over the course of an illustrious career, Landers has made work that meditates on the artist’s existential struggles. In early paintings, he scrawls diaristic text across large scale canvases to expose an emotionally vulnerable state of life as an artist. In other work, he employs a recurring cast of characters that includes a clown, a chimpanzee, and a figure made of wood named Plankboy. Landers obscures the boundary between himself and these alter egos, utilizing humor and parody to lay bare the struggles of artistic endeavors. Throughout, he wields personal experiences as a lens for interpreting universal musings on self-knowledge and self-doubt.
In this body of work painted during the pandemic, Landers expands on this practice through seven portraits of animals. Aphoristic text accompanies most of the portraits, written above each animal as a visual expression of its inner dialogue. He crops in close to each of their faces and emphasizes their quietly expressive nature. A lynx peers into the distance while it wonders, “Are they talking about me? What are they saying, is it good?” The viewer is directly addressed in another work in which a fox asks, “Do you still love me?” One can ppling with the ebbs and flows of success, but they’re also reflective of thoughts encountered by all humanity.”
Reception: November 19, 2022 | 6–8 pm
1511 Commerce Street
Dallas, 75201 Texas
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