NEW YORK, NY.- Nancy Margolis Gallery opens the 2016 New Year exhibition season with Sean McDonough’s solo exhibition. This exhibition marks McDonough’s first exhibition in NYC to show his largest group of work. The exhibition will be on view through February 13, 2016.

Sean McDonough creates concurrently two different types of abstract painting. The artist refers to these two styles of painting as “Extrovert” and “Introvert”, for they reflect a physical and emotional state he experiences as he delves into each. The “Extrovert” paintings, made with acrylic paint and rubbing alcohol have linear geometric patterns that remind one of a maze at first glance. The “Introvert” paintings, intense, smaller and tighter, made with oil paint and oil stick, have a thick textured surface of multiple layers of marks and fine lined colors reminiscent of intricately woven fabric. In contrast the “Extrovert” paintings larger, more process driven, begin with the artist tacking the canvas over strips of wood of various sizes. McDonough applies the mix of paint to the front of the canvas until the density of color and desired forms and patterns are achieved within the painting.

Phenomenal, luxuriant color, and textural patterning are abundantly present in the “Introvert” and “Extrovert” paintings although there is a definite contrast between them. The artist states “the work is in a sense my response to the world at large, and needing to remove myself from the advanced state of affairs today, to make things with my hands and my mind, and some simple tools. The role of paintings is to provide for the mind a time to wonder and think abstractly about anything.”

Sean McDonough is based in Brooklyn, NY. He received a B.S. at New York University in 2007 and a M.F.A. at Maryland Institute College of Art in 2012. Recent shows include Loft 594 Gallery, Brooklyn NY, Gross McCleaf Gallery PA, MIMA Gallery, Brooklyn NY, American Standard Popup Gallery, Miami FL. McDonough’s work has been featured in the New American Paintings (Issue 116), and Asian Cultural Center. In July 2015 the gallery featured his work in the group exhibition, “Summer Exhibit.” The upcoming exhibition will be his first solo exhibition with the Nancy Margolis Gallery.