Midnight Vignette – 19Karen Contemporary Artspace, Gold Coast

Two intertwined figures dressed in colourful costumes on a black background.

Midnight Vignette

Opening Reception
Saturday, October 14th, 5pm-7pm

19 Karen Contemporary Artspace
Gold Coast
Australia
Directions

I’m very proud to announce that I will be exhibiting new works alongside international and Australian artists as part of a series of mini-solo shows with 19 Karen Contemporary Artspace.

For more information on the works, enquiries or a catalogue, please contact the gallery at [email protected] or visit their website.

PICTURED ABOVE

The Party. 2023
Acrylic on canvas
103x103cm

Upcoming show – October 2023

A multicoloured painting on canvas of biker with a horse crested helmet, sitting on a squishy bike.

Rendezvous. 2023
Acrylic on canvas
103x103cm
 

Coming up in October this year – Midnight Vignette.
A mini-exhibition of new paintings with 19Karen Gallery on the Gold Coast, Australia.

More details to come! For all enquiries please visit the gallery website.

Antipodes 2023 – Beinart Gallery, Melbourne, Australia

A painting of a man on a horse chased by wolves in acrylic paint on wooden board by Sean Edward Whelan 2023

Horse – 2023
Acrylic on wooden panel
40x40cm


This year I was very lucky to be invited along to join Beinart’s 4th annual exhibition of Australian contemporary artists, Antipodes.

The open show brings together artist working across a variety of traditional and non-traditional, sculpture and mixed media. It’s humbling to be alongside some incredible talent.

For more information, visit the Beinart Gallery website, or if you are in Brunswick, Melbourne, drop in and see the exhibition for yourself.

Antipodes opens 15 January 2023 and runs through to the 29th.


A painting of a man holding hounds in acrylic paint on wooden board by Sean Edward Whelan 2023

Hounds – 2023
Acrylic on wooden panel
40x40cm

Happy 2022!

Happy New Year! To everyone who supported me, helped me hold shows, has a piece of my work in their home, has commissioned me for illustration projects or followed me over the course of 2021. It was a big year, and I couldn’t have done it without you. Thank you very much! ❤️🙏

Wishing you a happy new year and all the best in 2022!

Though I’ve lapsed from the habit of sending New Years cards (年賀状 – Nengajou) to friends and family over the last couple of years – it used to be a yearly challenge to come up with a new design, usually following the 12 year calendar (干支 – Eto) – this year felt like a good time pick it up again and at least do the creative part. 2022 being the year of the tiger was a big motivation too.

新年明けましておめでとうございます。昨年はたくさんのサポートありがとうございました!今年もよろしくお願い致します。2022年最初のアートは干支の寅🐯です!

LOCALS – Outré Gallery Melbourne

Super chuffed to be invited along to join a whole bunch of awesome Australian artists for the LOCALS show, opening on Feb 14 at Outré Gallery in Collingwood.
Big shout out to the team there – it’s great to be a part of it, and an awkward self congratulatory slap on the back for me. It’s my first show for 2020.

Here is a little preview of my piece. Hope you can make it along – check out the lineup at their site here.

 

LadyGrinningSoul - Sean Edward Whelan

 

 

New Work – Morrigan

Morrigan_SeanEdwardWhelan

Morrigan
Synthetic polymer on canvas
100 x 70cm
2018

 

Here is a piece I was commissioned to paint last year for a family’s first born baby girl.
I could have cracked out the watercolours and done a weird baby portrait, but that would have a been a bit shit.

Instead, I tried my hand at a shaped canvas and imagined her as the ‘phantom queen’ Morrigan – the Goddess of war, destiny, fate and death from old Irish mythology. Yes, much better.
Hope she grows up to be just as awesome.

 

Morrigan_SeanEdwardWhelan_Detail

 

Sleeping Easy

Sleeping Easy

Sleeping Easy
Acrylic on linen
100 x 70cm
2018

Some new things are in the works and I’m looking forward to sharing them with you soon.
So heads down for a bit. In the meantime, here’s the first painting.

MiniComic.club Project Updates

comic_website_crop2

 

After about a month of late nights – I’ve finally got the comic off to the printers for this year’s MiniComic.club.

Hungry Workshop in Melbourne are handling the production, and I’m looking forward to how it shapes up.

Printing starts really soon and right after that will be in the hands of everyone that subscribed this year. It’s been fun, but damn hard work putting it together – I’ve learned a heap about everything that goes into producing them and have a new appreciation – hats off to all the writers, pencilers, inkers and colourists out there. Truly amazing art form.

MiniComic.club Project

MiniComicClub

Later on this year, in September, I’ll be releasing a comic with MiniComic Club – an annual project that’s been running since 2013, and last year, I got the call to submit for 2017’s edition. To give you a bit of a background on it, here are words from the website.

 

…bringing you and your mailbox a years worth of minicomics and zines from some of Australia’s most interesting cartoonists and comics-makers…. 12 comics over 12 months, one each from these beautiful people…

 

Beautiful people artists and a new comic book every month. Nice! And all it takes is a little subscription fee and they come to your door in miniature format – A6 size to be precise.

From year to year the line-up has consisted of well established and emerging comic artists, and occasionally artists from other fields – and that’s where I fit in this year. So once I have the show I have been planning for years finally done, I’ll be working on a comic – which is pretty neat.

And if you want to learn more you can go here, where I have a short interview about my experience with the comic medium, on medium.

https://medium.com/@smallercomics/
(There are also interviews with other comic artists from past and present MiniComic Club projects to check out.)

 

If you are even more interested, you could also visit the MiniComic.Club page and get yourself a subscription for $38 AU. Very nice!

http://minicomic.club/2017/

 

Commissioned Work

commission2016

 

It’s been a while since I posted to the website, but I thought it worth sharing some new work I was commissioned to do for a friend recently.

It’s great to be asked to create a piece of art for someone, for a couple of reasons – one because it’s nice to be given the opportunity, but also because it can give you an unexpected concept to work with.

This piece turned out pretty good I reckon, and my friend was happy with it too – win win.