The work of Sean Landers revolves around the experiences and mindset of a contemporary American artist. Through a variety of mediums including text, sculpture and painting, Landers expresses elements of his own career, refracting these ideas inspired by personal experience through a vibrant artistic lens. One recurring motif in Landers’ oeuvre is Plankboy, a wooden figure held together by nails and hinges. For Landers, Plankboy is a vehicle through which he can convey certain complexities inherent to the relationship between an artist and the work they produce.

Plankboy first appeared in Landers’ works in the early 2000s after the artist gained a strong interest in Rene Magritte’s La Vache Periode between 1947–1948. Considered a complete departure from his distinct style, the Vache Period was Magritte’s form of retaliation against the Parisian art scene that had ignored him for decades. Vache, meaning cow in French, carries vulgar connotations that were subsequently echoed by Magritte’s paintings. He responded to the Parisians by creating a series of crude paintings inspired by cartoons and employing chaotic brushstrokes as well as wild subject matter. Reinforced by the fact that none of the paintings sold after being exhibited, Magritte’s Vache Period was a complete artistic rebellion against Surrealist tendencies at the time.

Image: akg-images, Artwork: © 2023 C. Herscovici / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

To Landers, this period in Magritte’s career represents unbridled artistic freedom in the face of conventional aesthetics. This idea is realized by Landers through Plankboy, who represents a blank slate upon which Landers can project facets of his own emotions and experiences.

The present lot is from a series in which Plankboy takes the place of figures from Greek mythology. Landers employs Plankboy in these universally recognized settings to illuminate certain human idiosyncrasies that arise from creating art for a living.

In Plankboy (Narcissus), we see a smiling Plankboy staring at his frowning reflection in a pond. According to Landers, this work exhibits the narcissism that he feels is inherent to life as an artist: “Narcissus is metaphorical for all people who devote their lives to making art. Anyone who believes that what they make in their art studio is worthy of attention and acclaim is inherently narcissistic.”ⁱ Similarly, Landers uses the myth of Pygmalion to describe the love and attachment he feels for all the art he produces.

For Landers, an artist often defined by his propensity for self-reflection, his art represents an intersection of personal experience and references to the art historical canon. One of the most unique facets of Landers’ distinct oeuvre is the appearances of characters such as Plankboy. By channeling the pathos of his own lived experiences and artistic movements or events that resonate with him, Landers creates visual metaphors that illustrate his own thoughts and feelings while extrapolating them towards larger interpretations regarding the life of a contemporary artist.

ⁱ Sean Landers, quoted in Sasha Bogojev, “Studio Time: The New Adventures of Plankboy with Sean Landers,” Juxtapoz, November 6, 2019, online.
- Provenance
  Galerie Rodolphe Janssen, Brussels
  Acquired from the above by the present owner
- Exhibited
  Brussels, Galerie Rodolphe Janssen, Sean Landers, November 7–December 21, 2019