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Sean Scully
Shortlisted: 1989, 1993

Scully works within a tradition of abstract painting which aims to represent the spiritual. He believes strongly that abstract art can be more, not less, accessible than representational art. He says 'Abstraction's the art of our age . it allows you to think without making oppressively specific references, so that the viewer is free to identify with the work.' He works mainly with stripes, which he sees as neutral forms which can be made to carry various meanings.

Sean Scully was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1945, but his family moved to London soon afterwards. Between 1965 and 1973 he studied at Croydon College of Art, the University of Newcastle upon Tyne and Harvard University. He was commended for the Turner Prize in 1989, and was nominated again in 1993. He was chosen because his paintings 'demonstrated the power of abstract art to embrace personal experience and psychological depth.'

This information has been taken from The Turner Prize: Twenty Years, by Virginia Button, Tate Publishing, 2003.

View Sean Scully in the Tate Collection