Sean Mills graduated from Emily Carr University in 2010. The work for his graduate exhibition took more than 500 hours over a period of six months to paint. The painting is a grid composed of 3422 titanium white acrylic squares.
In his first solo exhibition, "Pure Feeling" (September - October 2011) Mills continued his grid paintings of titanium white acrylic squares suspended within multiple layers of clear acrylic. Although every square is painted with the same amount of white acrylic, tonal variation is created and controlled based upon the depth of each individual square within the clear acrylic. Light is diffused as it is transmitted through the clear acrylic. Squares near the surface appear brighter, while deeper squares appear darker because less light is being reflected back to the viewer.
A heightened state of awareness and focus is given to subtle differences, normally imperceptible to the eye, which become energized and visibly apparent by evacuating the visual field of all non-essential visual stimuli. From a distance the composition is optically charged, but from up close the process, time and labour begin to reveal themselves.
A viewer wrote of his graduate work "The piece is a graceful remark on the sublime experience. It distills perceived natural beauty to its foundation and celebrates the mere beauty in its existence: a vast and beautiful canvas of white."
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