Frieze London 2026: Sean Landers

Timothy Taylor is pleased to return to Frieze London with a solo presentation of nine new paintings by Sean Landers. Debuting at the fair with the gallery, this body of work extends the artist’s longstanding engagement with personal reflection, existentialism, text, and narrative, while continuing his expansive redefinition of self-portraiture. 

In his new series, Landers brings together motifs that have emerged throughout his practice over the past two decades. Self-possessed wild animals, inscribed aspen trees, and stacks of books with revealing titles are rendered in crisp detail, each scene set against a stark, ethereal blue sky. Through these recurring elements, Landers considers the shifting boundaries between the individual and the collective, the inner life and the external world, and the artist and his work. His characteristic combination of vulnerability, introspection, and self-deprecating humour remains central, as does his tendency to locate the personal within larger questions of mortality, artistic ambition, and the nature of the self. Across the paintings, the titles of the books depicted include “Dreamer Distrusts the Dream,” “Reaching for Transcendence,” “‘Not’ Anti-Romantic,” and “The Romanticism of Ego Collapse.” 

Bears are the protagonists of many of these paintings; each assumes a pose that lends a human quality to the animal. They are regal, contemplative, and coy. In An Emotional Space (all paintings 2026) a black bear holds withering poppy flowers and gazes into the distance. Flanked by a pile of books, the bear leans against a tree where an inscription reads: The goal isn’t to tell a story / the goal is to remain inside a state of mind / –desire for recognition –fear of failure –loneliness –love –embarrassment –mortality –artistic ambition / these are all unresolved feelings, an emotional space that lingers in memory long after the words are forgotten. In Through Vulnerable Creatures, a grizzly bear looks over his shoulder at the viewer, beckoning. The inscription on the surrounding trees similarly turns the animal into a figure through which Landers examines the projection of his own emotional life onto the natural world.

Across the series, the narrative moves from introspective inquiry towards a broader consideration of connection and interdependence. New Varietals features a panda bear perched seductively on stacks of books with titles such as “Inheritance,” “Influence,” and “Collective Memory.” Behind the bear, three aspens ask, Are we cells with permeable walls or are we forts constructed of stone? [. . .] What is ours? / What is mine? For Landers, the aspen tree has long served as a metaphor for interconnectedness, growing in colonies along rhizomatic, long-living root systems. In earlier works, these trees have offered Landers a way to reflect on the material and conceptual shifts within his own practice over time. Here, the aspen suggests an interconnectedness that exceeds any one being, expression, or community. It Belongs, featuring a timid fawn with a cardinal resting gingerly on its head, extends this idea. A tower of books behind the creatures contains titles that unfold like a poem: A single aspen appears to be an individual tree but underground it is connected to many others. A single book appears to be an individual object but it belongs to a library. A single painting is an individual object but it belongs to an oeuvre. A single human is an individual but belongs to humanity.