Sean Landers: North American Mammals

Sean Landers' North American Mammals presents three groups of paintings, each of which refer to one another on various levels. These include paintings depicting bookshelves holding books whose spines contain a continuous text by Landers; portraits of animals with fur rendered in Scottish tartan designs; and a series of ocean paintings. Landers' text here is existential and emotional, his animals symbolic, overt caricatures but also characters in a story.
Much like Magritte, Landers' paintings often negotiate the visual relationships between image and word. His newest body of work offers a layered story of mortality, artistic legacy and the posterity of art, as symbolized in the books--made up of his words--that sit upon the shelves. This clothbound hardcover beautifully presents Landers' work, with text printed on paper between images and several gatefolds.