In 1982, Irish-born painter Sean Scully had an epiphany. A successful minimalist, he sensed something missing from his hard-edged bands and lines. If painting was to move forward, it meant putting back what he believed had been stripped out, namely "the ability to make relationships, to be metaphorical and referential, spiritual, poetic."
In "Sean Scully: The Eighties," paintings like "By Night and by Day" show how Scully employed moody colors, overlapping layers of pigment and expressive brushwork to create sensual geometrics imbued with romantic explorations of color, light and texture.