Sebastian Black

Sebastian Black is known for his philosophical consideration of abstraction, realized through painting and sculpture. Raised in Chelsea, one of New York’s art districts, and regularly carted to museums by his mother, who was an abstract painter, he first connected to painting in the 1990s. Black works with everyday items, such as defunct Chase bank deposit slip counters, toeing the line between representation and abstraction. A child-like puppy-face motif also summons a primitive female form, and a white wall emerges as a textured surface only when the light renders shadows upon it—Black is interested in the alteration of the viewer’s orientation and relationship to his works over time. After acknowledging that history shifts the way objects are seen, the artist forces his audience to confront that instability.

Black has exhibited at the Fisher Landau Center for Art, New York, Kunsthalle Andtrax, Mallorca, Spain, and a wide variety of international galleries since 2010.