Sean Hogan

Bio

Based in Melbourne, Australia, Sean Hogan established art and design studio Trampoline in 1995. He has worked with clients such as Wired Magazine, The New York Times and Apple Music. Sean has won design awards from AGDA, RAIA, AILA and ABDA. He has been a guest speaker at universities and institutions and represented Australia at the ‘Typographics21’ conference. He has been an invited contributor to San Francisco Design Week, Melbourne Design Week and Shanghai Visual Art and Design Exhibition and his worked has been published in magazines such as Eye (UK), Desktop (Aus) and Idn (Asia) and featured on sites such as Creative Network, Design Clever and AIGA’s Eye on Design. Sean’s system based art practice spans painting, print and sculpture. He has exhibited in 15 solo and group exhibitions. A collection of 30 of Sean’s digital artworks have been published in a large format poster book titled ‘Sean Hogan: 30 Works 2014-2020’.

Artist Statement
This series of works presents 22 new paintings based on the ‘+’ and ‘–’ symbols. These two symbols are loaded with meaning. Normally we associate the ‘+’ with an optimistic connotation and the ‘–’ with the pessimistic. During the pandemic, these connotations were reversed, being ‘positive’ was a negative, and this highlights the fluid nature of language and symbols and their meaning dependent on context. The pandemic also highlighted the power of social media and its algorithms to convey current affairs and information. The algorithms, however, don’t promote diversity, in fact, they do the opposite. Through these algorithms the world is encouraged to become more binary, with nuance and empathy being eroded. This exhibition posits the question: ‘Where to from here’ and this series of paintings hope to serve as a reminder that there is an alternative to this divisive algorithmic landscape. These works advocate for celebrating diversity, encouraging discussion, seeking knowledge and show that there are many ways to see and understand the world.