Selected Works

NEW YORK – Miles McEnery Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of paintings by Sebastian Blanck, on view 30 January through 15 March 2025 at 525 West 22nd Street. Accompanying the exhibition is a fully illustrated digital publication featuring an essay by Rebecca Schiffman. 

In his new exhibition, “My Heart and Eye Agree,” Blanck reinvigorates the tradition of portraiture through his singular use of light, color, and composition. While his works are rooted in photographs of his wife, muse, and fellow artist, Isca Greenfield-Sanders, Blanck does not aim for complete realism. Instead, he employs lush washes of vibrant color to suggest form and line, softening the boundary between figuration and abstraction. 

Light becomes a textural element in his paintings, with ornate shadows adorning his subject’s skin. Her face is often obscured by sunglasses and wide brimmed hats, further limiting any overt emotional facial cues. As such, Blanck’s ability to evoke dramatic shifts in mood and atmosphere relies on his masterful use of color; by immersing his figures in bold, saturated hues of purples, reds, yellows, and blues, he transforms the expressive tenor of each work. His use of color, coupled with the subtle constancy of his subject’s posture and expression highlights the remarkable power of abstraction and color to communicate feeling. The viewer is invited to linger in these quiet moments and bask in Blanck’s emotionally earnest and nostalgic works. 

Rebecca Schiffman notes, “Like Alex Katz’s numerous portraits of his wife, Ada, in which the repeated use of a single model reflects an ongoing experience of the world, Blanck’s portrayal of Isca transcends individual identity, evoking a broader emotional resonance that speaks to universal themes of connection, time, and presence.”