Sean Crossley

Sean Crossley uses painting as a practical means to explore different relationships between abstraction and realism, both of painting as an artistic discipline and within a broader social field. As such, it is concerned with both the intrinsic workings of paintings within their own historical continuum, as well as the way they operate as (conceptual) objects embedded in an overarching visual culture. Crossley’s approach to painting is that of a system of exchange offering a reflexive, non-literal way to navigate the visual complexity of the information age. Like a feedback loop, subjects which are often quotidian or conventional, such as faces, objects, or public spaces, are gradually weaved into or fused with other matters or systems. Tangible on the surface of the painting, where the pentimento reveals haphazard connections between different subject matters and compositions, this way of working also reveals itself in the ongoing dialogue which gradually develops between the different bodies of works.

Crossley's work has been shown in solo exhibitions at Harlan Levey Projects (BE), WIELS Centre for Contemporary Art (BE), and most recently as part of the BAD residency program (Bordeaux, FR). His work has been shown in group exhibitions in Flux Laboratory (Geneva, CH), Emergent (Veurne, BE), The Stable (Waregem, BE), and nGbK (Berlin, DE), to name a few. He is a recipient of the Martens Bequest for Painting (2015, AU) and participated in the residency programme of the Embassy of Foreign Artists - EOFA (CH) in 2021. Crossley lives and works in Brussels, Belgium.