Why I Live, 2024
Born 1962 in Palmer, MA
Lives and works in New York
Sean Landers is a painter and multimedia artist whose work spans a wide breadth of subjects, most coming from his own personal experience. His stream of consciousness textual outpourings together with recurring figurative motifs touch on existential themes and truths about contemporary society and humanity. Across all mediums, his oeuvre provides a visualization of thoughts — executed in a humorous and confessional way, Landers’ work blurs the lines between reality and fantasy, and between fact and fiction.
Landers’ early work originated in his writing, which he then turned into drawings and paintings in which the text became the image. This confessional, autobiographical thread runs throughout his practice, as he experiments with a variety of subjects and themes. Landers’ wide range of references also often stem from art historical periods. His Hogarth Series, for instance is based on a William Hogarth painting from 1732, and he also had a particular fascination with Magritte’s Vache period, which inspired him to make use of the automatic drawing techniques of the Surrealists, in combination with his signature humorous yet poignant motifs of sad clowns, checkered animals, personified wooden planks and the likes.
Sean Landers' solo exhibition Animal Kingdom was on view at Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature in Paris in 2023-2024. His work has been shown extensively for over three decades, his solo and group exhibitions include among others Le Consortium, Dijon; Petzel, New York; Kunsthalle Zürich; Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami; Musée Magritte, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Deichtorhallen, Hamburg; New Museum, New York; Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt; Serpentine Gallery, London; MoMA PS1, New York.
His work is in public collections worldwide, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Tate Modern, London; Des Moines Art Center; Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York; Sammlung Landesbank Baden-Württemberg, Stuttgart among others.
Lives and works in New York
Sean Landers is a painter and multimedia artist whose work spans a wide breadth of subjects, most coming from his own personal experience. His stream of consciousness textual outpourings together with recurring figurative motifs touch on existential themes and truths about contemporary society and humanity. Across all mediums, his oeuvre provides a visualization of thoughts — executed in a humorous and confessional way, Landers’ work blurs the lines between reality and fantasy, and between fact and fiction.
Landers’ early work originated in his writing, which he then turned into drawings and paintings in which the text became the image. This confessional, autobiographical thread runs throughout his practice, as he experiments with a variety of subjects and themes. Landers’ wide range of references also often stem from art historical periods. His Hogarth Series, for instance is based on a William Hogarth painting from 1732, and he also had a particular fascination with Magritte’s Vache period, which inspired him to make use of the automatic drawing techniques of the Surrealists, in combination with his signature humorous yet poignant motifs of sad clowns, checkered animals, personified wooden planks and the likes.
Sean Landers' solo exhibition Animal Kingdom was on view at Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature in Paris in 2023-2024. His work has been shown extensively for over three decades, his solo and group exhibitions include among others Le Consortium, Dijon; Petzel, New York; Kunsthalle Zürich; Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami; Musée Magritte, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Deichtorhallen, Hamburg; New Museum, New York; Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt; Serpentine Gallery, London; MoMA PS1, New York.
His work is in public collections worldwide, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Tate Modern, London; Des Moines Art Center; Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York; Sammlung Landesbank Baden-Württemberg, Stuttgart among others.