About Sean
A few questions, answered in my own words.
A few questions, answered in my own words.
I wanted something I could make with my hands, something creative that left a real thing behind at the end of the day. I'm not afraid to lean in and teach myself something that interests me, so I learned from whatever I could find and figured it out as I went.
It happened very naturally. I started on white canvas and enjoyed it quite a bit, but eventually I tried a black canvas and connected with it a lot more. I liked the finished pieces so much more that I stuck with it, and I've painted mainly on black ever since.
Mostly, they taught me about dawn: those moments when the sky first barely starts to light up behind the trees and gives tiny glimpses of the day to come. Everything looks different, a little surreal, and the way the light hits things makes it a really special time. Then there were the full moon nights when we could turn our headlamps off. There's nothing quite like stomping around the trails at 2 a.m., by yourself or with one other guy, with the only light coming from the moon. Everything casts this magnificent glow.
I'm an Army veteran. I served as a forward observer, attached to a light infantry unit. The job is calling for and adjusting indirect fire like mortars and artillery, but where I deployed, the rules of engagement meant I mostly served as an infantryman. As for my art, it gave me a lot of reasons to stand in front of a canvas and want to create something beautiful.
In my early twenties I spent about four months on the Big Island of Hawaii, working on an organic farm in trade for a place to stay, and once the sun went down it was truly dark, with almost no light pollution. On moonlit nights everything glowed, and on moonless ones I'd feel my way through the depth of the dark with a small flashlight or none at all, because I wasn't always the most prepared back then. Our little farm community had dinner nights, and the walk home is what I remember most: half the road open to the sky, then a canopy closing over it near my farm, a familiar stroll where I knew exactly where I was going but couldn't see much of it. Closer to home, the White Mountains shape my mountain ranges, though I tend to paint sharper peaks than their rounded ridges, and my coastal scenes come from the North Shore of Massachusetts, where I spent so much of my time growing up.
The biggest inspiration is my grandmother. She painted most of her life and always encouraged my music, and while she didn't get to see me pick up a paintbrush seriously, she's a big part of why I did. Next come the wet-on-wet painting shows I grew up watching. For night scenes, John Atkinson Grimshaw is magnificent with his nocturnes, and so is Grimshaw's student Walter Meegan, with his moonlit harbors.
I love them all for different reasons, but Magnificent Gold stands out. It was my first attempt at a nebula-style, northern lights sky and my first try at the pine tree silhouette foreground, something I'd always had in the back of my mind and have modeled pieces after ever since. It has soft blending and a beautiful color arrangement, and a lot of people have really connected with it. Fathom the Living Skies deserves an honorable mention: a calm sea with a single breaking wave under a smoke-cloud sky, a piece that tells a full picture for anyone looking for an emotional reaction to a painting. It does an awful lot for me, and I think it will for other people as well.
I want them to feel mystified and awestruck, as much as a painting can make you feel that way. It's how I felt, and still feel, under the northern lights, out on a ridgeline looking at the autumn foliage, or standing on a coastline looking out at the ocean. I want to capture that sense of awe, that connection to the beautiful, to the unreachable, to the things we don't get to experience very often.
Whatever feels right, honestly. More night scenes, for sure, and some paintings inspired by photos I took out on the mountain. I also want to explore more surreal, evocative skies, just a touch too far-fetched for what you'd see in person, but never alien or unbelievable. I'm always looking for that effect somewhere in between clouds and smoke in the air.
I spend time with my family and play guitar. I also make and edit musical loops, which might end up in my reels someday. I stay active with a small home gym, and I get outside whenever I can, whether that's snowboarding, biking, or hiking in the White Mountains. I love coastal towns like Gloucester, Newburyport, and Portsmouth, plus the occasional beach day in the sun. I write poetry too. It's not as good as I'd like yet, but it's mostly for me. Lately I've been reconnecting with fellow veterans and looking for ways to give back, both to that community and to the local art scene I'm becoming part of.
If something here spoke to you, come see the paintings.