A lyrical exercise in the possibilities of abstract painting, Wall of Light Red is a monumental painting from Sean Scully’s most celebrated and instantly-recognisable series Wall of Light, composed in the inimitable pictorial dialect of glossily painted horizontal and vertical bars that have become the artist’s hallmark. Executed in 1998, the present work is among the largest and earliest works within this iconic series, which Scully began in the late 1990s. This iconic corpus, of which the present work is a definitive example, represents the culmination of Scully’s career-long exploration of abstract painting. Using a five-inch brush and oil paints thickened with varnish, he builds up his compositions gradually, applying multiple layers of paint to animate the surface with luxuriant and calligraphic strokes. Bricks of scorched terracotta, carbon black and deep midnight blue are enlivened by the paint’s seductive and tactile texture. As each layer is applied, the feathered edges of these swathes of pigment and the spaces between them create fascinating, highly complex structures. Compositionally, the work evokes the architectural structure of its title, yet as the contradiction inherent in the name implies, these solid structures are dematerialised by Scully's use of color, so that in density there is light and in ethereality there is weight. Light seems to emanate from the edges of each segment within Wall of Light Red, the delicate brushwork delineating each colour boundary allowing for a subtle gradation between the differing areas of pigment.

The inspiration for the Wall of Light series came from a visit Scully made to Mexico in the early 1980s, where he was fascinated by the stones of ancient Mayan walls at Yucatan, which, when animated by light, seemed to reflect the passage of t.mes . "These places in the Yucatan were cities, now you see a wall, what remains, a wall transformed by light, the walls change color, from pink to blue to red. I would get up early, the shadows completely transform the ruined architecture, they make it seem hopeful one moment, tragic another" (Sean Scully quoted in: David Carrier, Sean Scully, London 2004, p. 25). After several return trips and almost twenty years of ruminating on this vision, Scully made his first Wall of Light painting in 1998. Spanning decades, locations, and media, this series crystallizes the full spectrum of Scully’s formal and chromatic language. Through Wall of Light Red, Scully evokes the Mediterranean light, sun baked terracotta and long, creeping shadows of dusk from the environs of his Barcelona studio. A great admirer of traditional Spanish painting from Velasquez to Goya, Scully is heavily influenced by these masters’ dramatic palettes, and particularly their use of black, which he here utilises to anchor the composition. Further, like his Spanish heroes, Scully is motivated by the brushstroke, and the individual gesture of the artist’s hand that reveals his presence and process. In this way Scully's paintings, although resolutely abstract, are replete with emotive content.

Each Wall of Light painting is appended by an emotionally resonant title which takes account of the conditions in which it was painted, the mood of the artist at the t.mes or the place of creation. Wall of Light Red invites associations with warmth, as though dense Southern heat were emanating off a sun-baked wall. Scully has declared that the colours within his work are woven of multi-faceted layers: “There are no simple colours in my work… there are no whites, no reds. Colours are always subverted by the colours underneath, so when you’re looking at something you’re never quite sure what you’re looking at” (Sean Scully quoted in: Hossein Amirsadeghi and Maryam Homayoun Eisler, Eds., Sanctuary: Britain’s Artists and their Studios, London, 2011, p. 112). In Wall of Light Red this interaction between light and dark is superbly conveyed through Scully’s extraordinary painterly control and technical facility. Wall of Light Red is a superb example of Scully’s profound investigation into the complex possibilities of articulating abstract form and theory: A work in which emotion, ambient experience and sensibility combine to form a painting of immense power and impact.