Editing Sean Scully (section)

=== Reception in China and new projects: 2014–2017 ===
In 2014, Scully opened a new studio space set on three acres in Tappan, New York, where he continued to extend the ''Landline'' series of paintings begun in 2000.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/sean-scullys-artworks-are-study-color-horizon-and-lifes-sorrows-180970334/|title=Sean Scully's Artworks Are a Study in Color, Horizon and Life's Sorrows|last=Catlin|first=Roger|website=Smithsonian|access-date=2019-12-17}}</ref> That same year, Scully opened fourteen solo exhibitions around the world, including the first major retrospective by a western artist in China. The exhibition, entitled ''Follow the Heart: The Art of Sean Scully'', opened in Beijing.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/5qL5xhyzvBgjW1NrKLvTwkC/building-blocks-how-sean-scully-conquered-china|title=BBC Arts - BBC Arts - Building blocks: How Sean Scully conquered China|website=BBC|access-date=2019-12-17}}</ref> The exhibition included ''China Piled-Up'', a new monumental sculpture in corten-steel, and travelled from the [[Shanghai Himalayas Museum]] to the CAFA Art Museum in Beijing, to critical acclaim.<ref name=":4">{{Cite web|url=https://www.flaunt.com/content/art/sean-scully-retrospective-nanjing|title=Sean Scully|website=Flaunt Magazine|access-date=2019-12-17}}</ref> Another outdoor sculpture ''Boxes Full of Air'' was commissioned at Chateau La Coste in France.
[[File:Landline Orient by Sean Scully.jpg|thumb|''Landline Orient'', 2016. Private collection.|alt=|left]]

Scully participated in the [[Venice Biennale]] for the first time, in 2015, with the solo exhibition ''Land Sea'' at the [[Palazzo Falier]] in Venice.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://artdaily.cc/news/78345/Major-exhibition-dedicated-to-Irish-artist-Sean-Scully-opens-at-Palazzo-Falier-in-Venice-#.XfgqWD3PyM8|title=Major exhibition dedicated to Irish artist Sean Scully opens at Palazzo Falier in Venice|website=artdaily.cc|access-date=2019-12-17}}</ref> The Museum Liaunig, in [[Neuhaus, Carinthia|Neuhaus]], Austria, opened its new building expansion with ''Sean Scully: Painting as an Imaginative World Appropriation''.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://fineartbiblio.com/artworks/sean-scully/2517/wall-of-light-blue-black-sea|title=Wall of Light Blue Black Sea {{!}} Sean Scully {{!}} Fine Art Biblio|website=fineartbiblio.com|access-date=2019-12-17}}</ref> To honour his long-term friendship with art critic [[Arthur Danto]] who died in 2013, Scully published the book ''Danto on Scully,'' bringing together the series of five essays Danto had written on the artist over the previous 20 years.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NPARogEACAAJ|title=Danto on Scully|last=Danto|first=Arthur C.|date=2015|publisher=Dap-distributed Art|isbn=978-3-7757-3963-4}}</ref>

In 2015 Scully completed his restoration of the 10th Church of Santa Cecília de Montserrat in Spain, and opened it to the public. Commissioned by the [[Museum of Montserrat]] to make a holistic artistic intervention in the sacred space, Scully not only permanently installed paintings but worked on site-specific frescoes, and the design of the altar and cross. The chapel is now both a working church, and also the ''Espai d’Art Sean Scully''.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/01/arts/international/sean-scully-painting-from-the-heart-to-the-heart.html|title=Sean Scully Fills a Spanish Monastery With Bursts of Color|last=Sharp|first=Rob|date=2015-06-30|work=The New York Times|access-date=2019-12-17|issn=0362-4331}}</ref> Scully was awarded the ''V Congreso Asociacion Protecturi'' for his contribution to Spanish religious heritage
[[File:Crate of Air by Sean Scully.jpg|thumb|''Crate of Air'', 2018. At the Inside Outside exhibition in [[Yorkshire Sculpture Park]] in 2018.]]
In 2016 Scully's second major exhibition in China, ''Sean Scully: Resistance and Persistence'', opened at the Art Museum of the [[Nanjing University of the Arts]], and travelled to the [[Guangdong Museum]] and the [[Hubei Museum]] in Wuhan.<ref name=":4" /> In the same year, as well as solo museum exhibitions in [[České Budějovice]], Czech Republic, and [[Valencia]], Spain, the artist put together two exhibitions of works from specific early periods in his private collection, one of works from the 1970s, in an off-site space in Ridgewood, Queens with Cheim & Read, and another of works from the 1980s with Mnuchin Gallery. Inspired by revisiting his earlier works, Scully began to reemploy techniques such as spray painting, which he first introduced in the late 1960s.

Over the course of 2015–2017, Scully's work expanded in two particular directions: sculpture and figuration. During this period, Scully began working on sculptural projects, including the ''Tower'' series using various materials such as [[Corten Steel|corten steel]], marble, and stainless steel, and the ''Stack'' series in both raw and painted steel were introduced. A new series of ''Block'' paintings was begun, in which Scully self-referenced his sculpture in paint. This new direction was the focus of the solo exhibition ''Wall of Light Cubed'' at Cheim & Read, NY.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://brooklynrail.org/2017/05/artseen/Sean-Scully-cubed|title=Sean Scully Wall of Light Cubed|last=Goodman|first=Jonathan|date=2017-05-01|website=The Brooklyn Rail|access-date=2019-12-17}}</ref> Scully also revisited his early exploration in figuration from the late 1960s in a series of figurative paintings titled ''Eleuthera'' which was completed between 2015 and 2017. The series was inspired by Scully's son Oisin, and was named after the island of [[Eleuthera]] in the Bahamas and the feminine Greek adjective [[wikt:ἐλεύθερος|ἐλεύθερος]] (''eleútheros''), meaning "free".<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20191213-art-in-the-2010s-the-most-striking-and-shocking-images|title=Art in the 2010s: The most striking – and shocking – images|last=Grovier|first=Kelly|website=bbc.com|access-date=2019-12-17}}</ref>