Sean Cavanaugh

Taking inspiration from the grand tradition of American nineteenth-century landscape painting, particularly that of the Hudson River School, Sean Cavanaugh’s work, like that of his predecessor, draws inspiration from nature and a key eye for detail. Not only does Cavanaugh revisit ideas of American wildness in his work, but he often does so by documenting his travels. His favorite settings include the Catskills of upper New York state and the vast wilderness of the West, including the formidable mountains of Montana and the rugged California coast.

Cavanaugh’s work conveys this natural subject matter by immersing the viewer in the setting, often zooming in, and focusing on the minute details of an individual tree or capturing a solitary wave as it breaks and spreads across a rocky beach. The artist refers to this as macro abstraction, so close that reality blurs itself into abstraction. This approach to documentation and depiction runs counter to the grandeur of Thomas Cole or William Trost Richards but, in doing so, encourages a more intimate engagement.

Cavanaugh’s dedication to painting and focus on the natural world is in his lineage and is, as such, an extension of a family legacy in American painting. The artist grew up in a family of painters—his mother, March Avery, and his grandparents, Sally Michel and Milton Avery are all artists whose works reflect a deep engagement with nature.

Born in 1969, Cavanaugh received a Bachelor of Arts degree in art and environmental studies from Pitzer College in Claremont, Califoria. He has had numerous solo gallery and museum exhibitins thrughout the country and abroad, most recently at the Lowe Museum at the University of Miami. His work has recently been shown at the Royal Academy of Art in London and can be found in public collections in California, including the Claremont Colleges, the Art in Embassies program in Karachi, Pakistan, the Farnsworth Museum in Maine, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Waqas Wajahat (2022)