Compositions with vertical and horizontal stripes in varying widths and lengths, as well as rectangular color fields have been characteristic of Scully’s art since the early days in the 1970s. When he works on a new piece of art, he usually begins by dividing and structuring the area that is to be painted, applying a precise arrangement of stripes and color fields. Scully chooses from an almost infinite wealth of compositional possibilities, at first he subdivides the rectangular shape of the picture’s surface into several smaller rectangular elements or strips. However, he succeeds in dissolving the rigidity of the apparently strictly orthogonal or parallel structures by applying the paint with a broad brush in numerous overlapping and sometimes impasto layers. It is precisely this step that makes for the visual strength of Sean Scully's work.

At second glance, the rational, almost architectural composition of geometric, horizontal and vertical forms turns out a masterpiece, a perfect orchestration of a balanced spectacle of harmony and dissonance: the edges of the individual color fields are not drawn with a ruler, instead they are a little irregular, the color strips vary in lengths and widths, they are neither accurately assembled like a mosaic nor are they flush with one another. Here and there they collide with color bars that run in the opposite direction. In addition, each color field shows a very different painterly structure and surface quality. The traces of the broad brush are clearly visible, the paint is not applied evenly everywhere, but very painterly and with varying degrees of opacity, thus creating a fascinating, opulent materiality and a very sensual liveliness that basically needs to be 'curbed' by the depiction’s geometric forms and right angles.

The lack of precision creates narrow spaces between the individual color fields, which eventually reveal the secret of both the painting and of Scully's art: Hidden color layers peek through from under the subtle shiny black and the strongly contrasting light gray, revealing a completely different palette than the first impression suggested. This reduced colorfulness allows the observer to focus on what lies underneath and comes to the fore only at closer inspection: strong red, warm yellow, cool green and blue can be seen and entirely change the picture’s overall effect. In connection with the painterly brushwork, the painting reveals the artist's intensive painting process, the creative energy he invested in the picture. Parts that have already been painted over, the past - so to speak, becomes visible again and a long-gone state reappears. "I think there is a lot of melancholia in my paintings. There is a sense of loss. [..] It seems that one of the worst things about the human condition is that it is not really possible to go back in your life. As you live your life, it is simultaneously being taken away from you, and this is a kind of tyranny that we live under. [..] You never get a second chance to do anything, to even breathe the same breath again. It's gone as soon as you've done it, and somehow this is reflected in my work. The paintings are an attempt to stop that process. They have a lot of process in them, but it's all frozen in time." (Sean Scully in a talk with Hans-Michael Herzog, New York, December 13, 1998)

As is the case so often in his oeuvre, the artist gives the present work a geographical title: "Samar" is the fourth largest island of the Philippines. Owing to supposedly monochrome coloring and the structure of the stripe compositions, the work can be compared to works from the late 1980s and early 1990s, among them the monotype "New York #5" (1989, Museum of Modern Art, New York), and especially the paintings "Durango" (1990, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf), "Hammering" (1990, Kunsthalle Bielefeld) or "White Window" (1988, Tate Gallery, London), which are among the artist's most important works. The time of origin of our work and the years around 1990 follow Scully's breakthrough in the United States and mark the beginning of Scully's rise to fame in Europe. In 1989, the Palacio Velázquez in Madrid and the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus in Munich, honored him wit a first solo exhibition in Continental Europe. With works that are very sensual despite their strictly geometric appearance, Sean Scully is one of the most important artists of his generation. His work is in the most prestigious international collections like the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., the Tate Gallery in London, the Albertina in Vienna and the Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou. His success of recent years in particular has earned Scully a permanent place in European art history at the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st century. His creation continues to have a lasting influence on the development of contemporary abstraction. In 2013, he became a member of the Royal Academy of Arts, and in 2014/15, Scully was the first western artist ever to be honored with a comprehensive, retrospective show in China, on display in both Shanghai and Beijing. In the past two years alone, his work has been part of more than a dozen solo exhibitions in Denmark, Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, Italy, Croatia, Austria, Poland, and the United States, among them the grand exhibition "Sean Scully. The Shape of Ideas" at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, offering an overview of the artist's past 50 creative years. [CH]