Sean Parrish
- Anna Lilli Garai
- 4 days ago
- 1 min read
Sean Parrish doesn’t stick to one way of working. His process is open, built on curiosity and trying things out. He picks up whatever catches his eye—shapes, surfaces, bits of color—and lets those guide what happens next. It might be paper, plexiglass, fabric, or wood. What matters is how things come together, how they speak to each other. Some works fall into place quickly, others take time.
A lot of it starts with looking. A wall texture, a broken patch of pavement, the way light moves across a surface while driving—these are his notes. From there, he starts layering. Staining, cutting, rearranging. He often builds his own panels to paint on, letting the size and shape help set the tone. There’s no strict plan, just a rhythm that builds as he goes.
His background in history is there, but not in a literal way. No obvious references. More like a sense of time built into the work. Layers cover each other, peek through, shift position. It’s not about the past as subject—it’s just part of how the work holds space.
Based in Greensboro, North Carolina, Sean calls his work a kind of public diary. Not a big reveal, more like quiet tracking. The pieces don’t try to explain everything. They stay open. There’s softness in the materials, but also structure. Something built and rebuilt, held together by attention.
