Sean Yelland: Don't Look Now

June 6 - 20

Opening Reception: June 6, 1-3 PM
Artist in Attendance

All work subject to pre-sale.

In DON’T LOOK NOW! Sean Yelland focuses on moments of transition and tension. Each painting in this collection isolates spaces and people captured in a moment of change articulated through Yelland’s uncanny technical ability. Obstacles both physical and psychological fill each canvas, suggesting narratives that elevate the compositions beyond documentary. They become metaphors for the daily struggles big and small we experience everyday.

Pulling away - 40 × 40 - Oil on CAnVAS - $ 16,000

Yelland studies places of transition caught somewhere between cycles of decay and gentrification. He is able to fill an empty street or derelict building with elements that push beyond the surface of daily life and engage the viewer through a lens of equal parts cunning, wit and deep empathy achieving a sensitive perspective on both the spaces he paints and the people that enliven a neighborhood.

Throughout his career, Yelland has painted what he knows. Having lived in Toronto his entire life and never driving, he walks which allows time to observe and be in the spaces he paints rather than just pass through. As much as these paintings are voyeuristic observations of the daily experiences of others, they are equally about the artist’s own life and state of mind.

Yelland’s commitment to observing the peculiarities of the world around him combined with his remarkable talent for his craft has helped establish him as one of the leading painters of his generation. Similar to Colville and Pratt, Yelland does not shift his style to follow trends of the day. Over the last three decades he has moved quietly through the world, often accessing its more marginal, less celebrated spaces and found great humanity in them. He is committed to his craft and through that commitment, has become a master of it.