Gregory Seán Sheehan, who has lived and worked in Germany since the early
1980´s. Curved lines, rectangular plains, horizontal and vertical bands of colour,
at times transparent in overlay, accumulate to form horizontal configurations
reminiscent of landscapes.
Not real landscapes, at least not in the geographical sense but at the same time
unmistakably Irish in both their colour and form, which the painter with the help of
turf and other earth pigments composes on his canvas.
The dark, soggy arboreal turf gathered by Sheehan from bogs and mountain tops
in Ireland, is the dominant material used in his work. Applied sometimes as a
transparent glaze, creating fine nuances of grey, it is then applied generously in
chunks creating an earthy texture, capturing the expanse and sombre beauty of
the uninhabited landscape. Greys, blacks and browns are woven into interlacing
contrasts, glazed lightly with blues and greens.
The painting process itself invites the predominating elements of an archaic
landscape, i.e. earth, water and sky to unfold and interact in another although
smaller act of creation.
Gregory Seán Sheehan´s work stands neither within the traditions of abstract
painting, born out of intellectual concepts, nor with those of visual realism which
often runs the risk of being petrified in cliché.
His paintings find their own expression for that which in our fast, "flexible",
modern world lies often lost beyond the horizon but nevertheless lives on in our
hearts: Home.
Christoph Rust, Hannover 2000
