SEBASTIAN BLANCK
SEBASTIAN BLANCK
[BIRDS CHIRPING]
19 SEPTEMBER — 2 NOVEMBER 2025
MAYA FRODEMAN GALLERY
[BIRDS CHIRPING]
Sebastian Blanck’s third solo exhibition with the gallery, [Birds Chirping] introduces a lovingly executed body of work rendered in electric color. Drawing inspiration from his daily life, his family and friends, and most notably his wife and muse, fellow artist Isca Greenfield-Sanders, Blanck ventures beyond mere representation. As with birdsong in a closed-captioned film, [Birds Chirping] acts as a visual filter for the noise of modern living.
In painting idyllic scenes of a childhood spent in the outdoors— boys paddleboarding on a lake or adventuring far-off in the distance, dwarfed by trees—or Isca in her sunhat, surveying her garden, there is an earnest commitment to what the artist describes as “leaning into the more joyous moments.” Sebastian Blanck approaches his work as an artist as a visual diary of what happens in his family life and in his friends’ lives. In this lush world, abundance and gratitude
permeate. Isca’s Summer Garden is not just a patch of dirt, rather a jungle of brilliantly hued foliage, nature’s bounty in veritable droves and luscious application of paint. Isca herself faces away from the viewer, dwarfed by her plants; one can almost hear her humming to herself (or birds, chirping).
According to the artist, “There is something – I think—brave in painting your own life, and I’ve only come to realize this in the last few years, actually, because you have no idea where that is going to go. Because you have hopes and you have aspirations for where your life will lead, but life is definitely filled with surprises, and challenges, and being able to be steadfast, and continue to look for beauty among those challenges I think is really, really important.”
Of equal importance, Blanck excels in technical mastery of paint, swinging between the relative abstraction and
visual complexity of the Sunhat images, and more traditional portraiture of Isca at her Piano. As curator, writer and art historian Matthew Israel wrote in 2023, “Upon first glance, Sebastian Blanck seems simply a painter of idyllic scenes. However, given the attention they deserve, Blanck’s works reveal a complex investment in formal experimentation, an unexpected tension between figuration and abstraction, and an engaging and unconventional approach to contemporary realism.”
The largest work, Isca at her Piano, feels central to the exhibition, despite its relative singularity within the whole. Here, Blanck introduces the direct and relaxed gaze of his wife in an intimate interior setting, legs comfortably crossed with stockinged feet, seated at her piano. Dappled light from an unseen window filters across her rumpled hair and streaks the floorboards. We are faced with an elemental vision of Isca as muse and human being, confident
and complex at the center of the artist’s world. “There’s a strippedback directness to it,” notes Blanck, who saw “an opportunity to go to the more traditional, classic side of imagemaking.” Distinctly contemporary, and exquisitely intimate in nature, it’s an electrifying portrait of Isca, so often the subject of Blanck’s work, but seen here as though for the first time.
Born in New Haven, CT in 1976, Blanck holds a BFA in Painting from the Rhode Island School of Design and was selected as a visiting artist at the American Academy in Rome in 2001. Widely recognized for his musical contributions in addition to his painting, Blanck has exhibited at galleries in the United States and Europe. His work has been reviewed in publications including New York Magazine, Artforum, Paper Magazine and The New Yorker. Sebastian Blanck currently lives and works in New York.
SUMMER GARDEN, 2025
Oil on linen
54 x 45 inches
54
THE ICE HOUSE, 2024
Oil on linen
x 45 inches
ISCA WITH THE WILDFLOWERS, 2025
Oil on linen
15 x 10 inches
Oil on linen
45 x 30 inches
SUNRISE SHORE, 2025
72 x 60 inches
ISCA AT THE PIANO, 2025
Oil on linen
Oil on linen
50 x 45 inches
PINK MOON, 2025
HH, 2025
Oil on linen
45 x 54 inches
54 x 45 inches
PINK WITH SCARF, 2025
Oil on linen
54 x 45 inches
BLUE WITH SCARF, 2025
Oil on linen
Oil on linen
45 x 30 inches
BLUE HAZE, 2025
Oil on linen
20 x 16 inches
MAGIC WANDERERS, 2025
15 x 12 inches
STAY IN, 2025
Oil on linen
10 x 8 inches
FLOATING, 2025
Oil on linen
PADDLEBOARD, 2025
Oil on linen
10 x 8 inches
SEBASTIAN BLANCK
American artist, born in New Haven, Connecticut, 1976
Lives and works in New York, NY
EDUCATION
BFA Painting, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, R.I., 1998
Visiting Artist, American Academy in Rome, Italy, 2001
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2025 [Birds Chirping] Maya Frodeman Gallery, Jackson Hole, WY
My Heart and My Eye Agree
Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY
2024 Halos Dowling Walsh Gallery, Rockland, ME
2023 She’s My Best Friend Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY
2021 You’re My Favorite Thing by Far Wetterling Gallery, Stockholm, Sweden
2021 A Year on Magnolia Road
Tayloe Pigott Gallery, Jackson Hole, WY
2020 Shrinking Circles Dowling Walsh Gallery, Rockland, ME
2019 Only Love and Time Ille Arts, Amagansett, NY
2019 Canopy of Blue Dowling Walsh Gallery, Rockland, ME
2018 Snow Dusk Tayloe Piggott Gallery, Jackson Hole, WY
2018 Weather Window Baldwin Gallery, Aspen, CO
2017 Dear Tayloe Piggott Gallery, Jackson Hole, WY
2016 Everyday De Buck Gallery, New York, NY
2016 That’s Why We’re Running Away Wetterling Gallery, Stockholm, Sweden
2015 Paper Trail Baldwin Gallery, Aspen, CO
2015 I’ll Be Your Mirror Dubner Moderne, Lausanne, Switzerland
2013 Oh, To Be Back in the Land of Coca Cola Wetterling Gallery, Stockholm, Sweden
2011 Carousel Baldwin Gallery, Aspen, CO
2011 YOU, YOU, YOU Wetterling Gallery, Stockholm, Sweden
2010 Alibi Coast Robert Goff Gallery, New York, NY
2009 West Shore Drive Scott White Contemporary Art, San Diego, CA
2008
A River of Our Own Baldwin Gallery, Aspen, CO
2007 I Blame Baltimore Wetterling Gallery, Stockholm, Sweden
2006 Blue Morning Scott White Contemporary Art, San Diego, CA
2005
Someone to Wash Over Me Baldwin Gallery, Aspen, CO
2004 Drawn Curtain Michael Steinberg Fine Art, New York, NY
2003 I Love the Shower Girl Wetterling Gallery, Stockholm, Sweden
2002
2002
Sebastian Blanck Tribeca
Issey Miyake New York, NY
Sebastian Blanck Daniel Azoulay Gallery, Miami, Florida
2001 Three Projects Rooms Galleria In Arco, Turin Italy
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2024 All Bangers All the Time Miles
McEnery Gallery, New York, NY
2024 Slight of Hand Me Paints Me
2020 Do You Think It Needs A Cloud? Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY
2019 Art on Paper Site Brooklyn Gallery, New York
2018 4th Annual Hand Pulled Prints: Current Practice in Printmaking Site Brooklyn Gallery, New York
2018 40th Anniversary Show Wetterling Gallery, Stockholm, Sweden
2018 Autumn Group Show Dubner Moderne, Lausanne, Switzerland
2017 Colored Light | Summer Select De Buck Gallery, New York
2015 Rose is a Rose Lepore Savage Gallery, New York, NY
2013 10 Years Wallspace, New York, NY
2008 Kunst Gruppe Werkstatte, New York, NY
2006 Summer Group Show Carl Hammer Gallery, Chicago, IL
2005 Gallery Artists Baldwin Gallery, Aspen, CO
2004 River Arts Casola Gallery, Peekskill, NY
2003 Flesh Museum of Modern Art, Jacksonville, Florida
2003 25th Anniversary Show
Bjorn Wetterling Gallery, Stockholm, Sweden
2003 Gallery Artists Baldwin Gallery, Aspen, CO
2002 Painting as Paradox Artists Space, New York, NY
2002 Friends and Family LombardFreid Fine Arts, New York, NY
2002 Spike Gallery, New York, NY
2002 National Prize Show
Cambridge Art Association,
Cambridge, MA
2001 20/20 Project Space, Toronto Canada
2001 Nostalgia curated by Urbanetc., New York, NY
2001 American Academy of Arts and Letters Invitational New York, NY
2001 ADDITION | SUBTRACTION
New York, NY
2000 Eyewash Gallery Brooklyn, NY
BIBLIOGRAPHY
”Sebastian Blanck and Isca GreenfieldSanders Talk Art and Marriage” WOMENS WEAR DAILY, 2023
”Naturally Abstract: Sebastian Blanck’s Updated Venus at Miles McEnery Gallery” by Donald Kuspit WHITE HOT MAGAZINE, 2023
”Calming the Chaos” MOUNTAIN LIVING, November 2020
”The Colorful Paintings of Artist and Musician @SebastianBlanck” INSTAGRAM blog, July 2015
Wendy Goodman, “Space of the Week: A Working Relationship” NEW YORK MAGAZINE, May 2013
Nick Green, “At Sea”, COWBELL MAGAZINE, July 2010
Hilary Kaylor, “Premiere: Sebastian Blanck – Empire of the Free”, RCRDLBL, July 2010
Dale Eisinger, “Bash Compacter: Blanck Check” NEW YORK PRESS, June 2010
Shannon Wiedley, “Album Review
Sebastian Blanck – Alibi Coast” REDEFINE MAGAZINE, July 2010
Andrew Duncan, “Sebastian Blanck – Alibi Coast (music Review)” ZAP TOWN, July 2010
Matthew Fiander “Sebastian Blanck: Alibi Coast” Pop Matters July 2010
Jesse Cataldo “Sebastian Blanck: Alibi
Coast” SLANT MAGAZINE June 2010
”Sebastian Blanck: Alibi Coast” NOWNESS, June 2010
Scott Fallon “Quick Spins: Alibi Coast” THE BERGEN RECORD June 2010
Sebastian Blanck – “I Blame Baltimore” Video STEREOGUM, May 2010
”Premiere Freeload: Sebastian Blanck
f.Caroline Polachek”, THE FADER, May 2009
Alex Hawgood, “Independents’ Day” V MAGAZINE, Spring 2008
Johan Falkman, “Sebastian Blanck”, THE PRODIGAL SON, Fall 2007
Richie Frieman, “Sebastian Blanck”, PENSEYEVIEW.COM, May 2007
Joyce Korotkin, “Sebastian Blanck” THE NEW YORK ART WORLD, April/ May 2004
”Sebastian Blanck”, NEW YORK MAGAZINE, April 2004
Meghan Dailey, “Critic’s Pick” ART FORUM, December, 2002
Meghan Sutherland, “Mont Blanck” PAPER MAGAZINE, November, 2002
Deborah Schoeneman, Blanck Slate NEW YORK POST, Aug. 12, 2002
Sebastian Blanck, THE NEW YORKER, Aug. 5, 2002
Alexandra Jacobs, Guy paints naked girlfriend THE NEW YORK OBSERVER, July 15, 2002
Sharon Edelson, Blanck Canvas WOMEN’S WEAR DAILY, July 10, 2002
Thomas Garvey, Award Winning Art ARTS MEDIA, Summer 2002
Next door at Daniel Azoulay STREET MIAMI, March 8-14, 2002
Sara Sites, If you are interested in painting MIAMI ART EXCHANGE.COM, March 4, 2002
PUBLICATIONS
My Heart and My Eye Agree, published by Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY, 2025
She’s My Best Friend, published by Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY, 2023
You’re My Favorite Thing by Far, published by Wetterling Gallery, Sweden, 2021
I Blame Baltimore, published by Wetterling Gallery, Sweden, 2007
I Love the Shower Girl, published by Wetterling Gallery, Sweden, 2003
Skin: Contemporary Views of the Body, published by Jacksonville Museum of Modern Art, FL, 2003
Three Projects Room: Sebastian Blanck, published by Galleria In Arco, Italy, 2001
Public & Corporate Collections
The Progressive Corporation, Mayfield, OH
MAYA FRODEMAN GALLERY
66 SOUTH GLENWOOD STREET
JACKSON
HOLE, WYOMING
TEL 307 733 0555
This catalog complements Sebastian Blanck’s Exhibition [Birds Chirping]
Maya Frodeman Gallery 19 September - 2 November 2025
Images courtesy the artist
© 2025 All Rights Reserved
Sagebrush, (detail), 2023, Oil on canvas
