Artist’s Palate: Sean Scully’s pancakes
Flip through Irish-born artist Sean Scully's dynamic pancake recipe, as featured in our monthly Artist’s Palate feature
![Sean Scully Wallpaper* Artist's Palate Pancakes January 2021](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/bmXb6FvHRaexiz2AeTHE6S-415-80.jpg)
Sean Scully has spent the last six decades fusing spirituality with abstraction, creating grids, stripes and bold stacks of colour. When the Irish-born artist proposed pancakes for our recipe series, we instantly imagined a stack, but as he explains, ‘I could make a stack, like one of my sculptures or paintings. But the family is eagerly waiting, so take them as they come, with maple syrup for the kids and jam for the adults.’ He has his pancake production down to a fine art, creating them a few times a week for his wife and eleven-year-old son. For Scully, giving a pancake enough airtime before serving is crucial because it excites the recipient. ‘If you can flip it over a couple of times in the air, you’re a master.’
Ingredients
1 organic egg
4 loaded tsp organic gluten-free flour
Organic grass-fed whole milk
Coconut oil, for frying
RELATED STORY
Method
Mix the egg and flour in a mug and leave it for a few minutes. Then stir in some milk. I make it thinner than most people because I want the pancake to be thin and delicate (you will have to play with amounts). Put coconut oil in a non-stick frying pan (not too much, about one teaspoon), then heat it over a medium heat. Pour in the pancake mix so it makes a nice, even puddle. After a few minutes, it should be solid enough to flip over with a wooden skillet. Then, here’s the artistic part, it should slide around, nice and loose, in the pan. This means it’s ready to be flipped. This is very important because it dries the pancake and gives it air. Plus, it excites the client. If you can flip it over a couple of times in the air, you’re a master.
Sean Scully’s pancake flipping in action, filmed in April 2020. Video courtesy of Sean Scully Studio
INFORMATION
Wallpaper* Newsletter + Free Download
For a free digital copy of August Wallpaper*, celebrating Creative America, sign up today to receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories
This article appears in the January 2021 issue of Wallpaper* (W*261) – on newsstands now and available for free download here
‘Sean Scully: Passenger’, until 15 January 2021, Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest. en.mng.hu
The artist will stage his first show with Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris in Spring 2021. ropac.net
Harriet Lloyd-Smith was the Arts Editor of Wallpaper*, responsible for the art pages across digital and print, including profiles, exhibition reviews, and contemporary art collaborations. She started at Wallpaper* in 2017 and has written for leading contemporary art publications, auction houses and arts charities, and lectured on review writing and art journalism. When she’s not writing about art, she’s making her own.
-
‘Hedonistic and avant-garde’: Rabanne’s Julian Dossena on the legacy of the chainmail 1969 bag
Paco Rabanne’s 1969 chainmail handbag encapsulates the late designer’s futuristic, space-age style. Current creative director Julien Dossena tells Wallpaper* about the bag’s particular pleasures
By Jack Moss Published
-
Postcard from Paris: Olympic fever takes over the streets
On the eve of the opening ceremony of Paris 2024, our correspondent shares her views from the streets of the capital about how the event is impacting the urban landscape.
By Minako Norimatsu Published
-
The Mercury Prize nominees for 2024 have been revealed
Charli XCX, The Last Dinner Party and Beth Gibbons are amongst this year's nominees
By Charlotte Gunn Published
-
Harlem-born artist Tschabalala Self’s colourful ode to the landscape of her childhood
Tschabalala Self’s new show at Finland's Espoo Museum of Modern Art evokes memories of her upbringing, in vibrant multi-dimensional vignettes
By Millen Brown-Ewens Published
-
Artist Peggy Kuiper’s impactful figurative works explore her memories and emotional landscape with striking visual intensity
Peggy Kuiper presents ‘The Conversation That Never Took Place’ at Reflex in Amsterdam, featuring over 25 new works (until 13 July)
By Simon Chilvers Published
-
Wanås Konst sculpture park merges art and nature in Sweden
Wanås Konst’s latest exhibition, 'The Ocean in the Forest', unites land and sea with watery-inspired art in the park’s woodland setting
By Alice Godwin Published
-
Don’t miss: Hayv Kahraman intertwines colonialism and botany in London
Artist Hayv Kahraman draws parallels between colonial botany and her experiences as an Iraqi refugee transplanted into Europe, at Pilar Corrias in London
By Hannah Silver Published
-
Pino Pascali’s brief and brilliant life celebrated at Fondazione Prada
Milan’s Fondazione Prada honours Italian artist Pino Pascali, dedicating four of its expansive main show spaces to an exhibition of his work
By Kasia Maciejowska Published
-
The ageing female body and the cult of youth: Joan Semmel in Belgium
Joan Semmel’s ‘An Other View’ is currently on show at Xavier Hufkens, Belgium, reimagining the female nude
By Hannah Silver Published
-
John Cage’s ‘now moments’ inspire Lismore Castle Arts’ group show
Lismore Castle Arts’ ‘Each now, is the time, the space’ takes its title from John Cage, and sees four artists embrace the moment through sculpture and found objects
By Amah-Rose Abrams Published
-
Gerhard Richter unveils new sculpture at Serpentine South
Gerhard Richter revisits themes of pattern and repetition in ‘Strip-Tower’ at London’s Serpentine South
By Hannah Silver Published