Sean Powers (b. 1992) is an American artist living and working in London, UK. He graduated with a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2014, and an MA Painting degree from the Royal College of Art in 2024.
His recent exhibitions include: Unsacred Terrains, Elias Tsiofas Gallery, Thessaloniki, GR; Slight of Hand, Me Paints Me; Waiting Room, Whiteshepherd Gallery, London, UK; Coda, Thameside Studios, London, UK; Backscatter, Chilli Art Projects, London, UK; The Watcher, J/M Gallery, London, UK; Omnipotence of Dreams, Salford Art Museum, Manchester, UK; Satellite Paradise, Rhett Baruch Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; Open Call 2024, Me Paints Me; RCA Painting Degree Show 2024, London, UK; Caper, Greatorex St., London, UK; Things That Matter, AMP Gallery, London, UK; Junctures, Chilli Art Projects, London, UK; Risovision, The Print Shop LA, Los Angeles, CA; Greetings From Home, Glorious Flaming Particles, The Print Shop LA, Los Angeles, CA. Sean’s work has been featured in Art 021 Shanghai with Xima Gallery and he’s also a recipient of the 2024 Cass Art Prize Student Award.
Painting is an existential dilemma caught in a cycle of reincarnation. It's a stereotype, a thixotropic material nostalgically recycling the same themes. I wonder if I look deeper into what painting is opposed to how we think it should look, I'll find a soul with principles but no form. I’m spellbound by the transcendental commonality of painting’s principles and values. That’s why I call these “ecotone paintings” because they have a likeness to this ecological concept. It’s where different realms of painting’s process meet and amalgamate. I’m looking for a painting that reflects a kinesthetic mercurial act of faith. Something that looks beyond determinism into metaphysical absurdity. I bring observations from outside the painting that remind me of difficult metaphysical questions into the painting. As it develops what is brought in from outside begin to be reconstructed and embodied by principles, values and technics inside the painting, eventually becoming something else. The transformative and innovative nature of the process grasps novelty barely within reach. This is the painting I'm looking for, a fingerprint of an incomprehensible finger.