Sebastian Blanck | A Year on Magnolia Road

S E B AST I A N B L A N C K

31 MARCH – 02 MAY 2021

SE B A S T I A N BL ANCK A YE AR ON MAGNOLIA ROAD

TAYLOE PIGGOTT GALLERY 62 SOUTH GLENWOOD STREET JACKSON HOLE WYOMING TEL 307 733 0555 TAYLOEPIGGOTTGALLERY.COM

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Behind the Branches, 2021 Oil on canvas 72 x 60 inches

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Cross Country, 2021 Oil on canvas 15 x 12 inches

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Magnolia Road Blue, 2021 Oil on canvas 60 x 50 inches

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Black and Blue Ice, 2021 Oil on canvas 72 x 60 inches

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House Light, 2021 Oil on canvas 15 x 12 inches

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Ice Rink Lake, 2021 Oil on canvas 60 x 50 inches

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Blizzard Blur, 2020 Oil on canvas 72 x 60 inches

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Red Maple, 2020 Oil on canvas 60 x 50 inches

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Pink Sunset (Graphic), 2020 Oil on linen 50 x 38 inches

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Magnolia Road, 2021 Ink on paper 15 1/4 x 11 1/4 inches

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Biking, 2021 Ink on Paper 22 x 15 inches

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Family Tree, 2021 Ink on paper 15 1/4 x 11 1/4 inches

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Standing at the Lake, 2021 Ink on paper 15 1/4 x 11 1/4 inches

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Ice Skating, 2021 Ink on Paper 18 1/4 x 15 inches

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Magnolia Branches, 2021 Ink on paper 15 1/4 x 11 1/4 inches

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M and M Still Life, 2021 Ink on paper 15 1/4 x 11 1/4 inches

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Natty Boh, 2021 Ink on paper 15 1/4 x 11 1/4 inches

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A YEAR ON MAGNOLIA ROAD

by Katie Franklin

On March 10th, 2020, artist Sebastian Blanck and his family left their home in Manhattan for the country to escape a previously unknown deadly pathogen. We all know to some degree what happened next. For Blanck, his wife, artist Isca GreenfieldSanders, and their two young boys, along with the rest of the world, it was impossible to know they were embarking upon the year to come, a year of full isolation in their vacation cabin on a lake in upstate New York. With the world shut down, Blanck turned his eye on familiar subject matter, his wife, his boys, and two spectacular just-budding magnolia trees, and began to draw.

Presented just over a year later, A Year on Magnolia Road witnesses the artist’s world in lockdown; that is, his family. There’s a universality to the images; we feel as though we’re looking at something timeless, as if perhaps we’ve been there before. “I feel like my job as an artist is to look for beauty and share it, in whatever way I can, with other people who maybe don’t have those things to look at, or who aren’t looking—perhaps they don’t have time in their own lives to properly look. And that is my job—to share that beauty.”

As an artist, Sebastian Blanck conjures the nostalgic interaction between man and nature. He has always painted those closest to him. An accomplished musician, he was never without his sketchbook on tour, the sketches fodder for larger-scale paintings upon his return to the studio. This exhibition pairs black and white works on paper in pen and ink with large-scale oil paintings in the form of broad perspective seasonal vignettes that evoke the solitary nature of passing time. “I think nostalgia now has such a different [meaning]—it means the same thing, but in a much different, and

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more potent and positive [way] than it was. Even last year, we said “oh, sepia tones are nostalgic,” where now everybody has nostalgia for something, because the whole way the world is functioning is so different.” We experience changing seasons and an unmistakable confidence blossoming in the hand of the artist along with the inimitable magnolia.

Like the Impressionists and post-Impressionists before him, Blanck places his figures in harmony with nature. Blanck challenges the viewer to stand still and lose oneself in the narratives through strong lines, vibrant color, and playful composition. Blanck’s paintings are an expression of the feelings that connect us with one another. Working from photographs, he has tasked himself with making a painting a day. This structure allows him to work quickly and intuitively without giving way to overworked canvases, rather reveling in unintended mistakes and possibilities.

Blanck received his BFA from Rhode Island School of Design. In the late 1990’s he worked as an assistant for American figurative artist, Alex Katz. Although influenced

by Katz, Blanck’s work varies greatly due to the intimacy of his subjects and the evidence of his hand in the work. Throughout his career, he has had solo exhibitions in California, Colorado, Maryland, New York, Switzerland, Sweden, and Wyoming and has been featured in group shows in New York, Chicago and Sweden. In 2001, he was a visiting artist at the American Academy in Rome. Widely recognized for his musical contributions in addition to his painting, Blanck has exhibited at galleries in the United States and Europe. His work has been reviewed in publications including New York Magazine, Artforum, Paper Magazine, and The New Yorker.

Sebastian Blanck in his studio in New York

THIS CATALOG COMPLEMENTS A YEAR ON MAGNOLIA ROAD AN EXHIBITION WITH SEBASTIAN BLANCK © TAYLOE PIGGOTT GALLERY 2021

62 SOUTH GLENWOOD STREET JACKSON HOLE, WYOMING TEL 307 733 0555 TAYLOEPIGGOTTGALLERY.COM