The Buck

Sean Rush’s The Buck (2021) is a grand-scale oil painting on raw Belgian linen, incorporating 24-karat gold leaf and boldly measuring 72″ ◊ 72″. In this piece, Rush presents a mythic meditation: a man crowned with antlers emerges from the linen ground itself, as if organically sprouting from the material realm.

The raw linen serves as the natural mid-tone, blurring the line between figure and field. Warm sienna brushstrokes-both precise and gestural-trace muscle, bone, and expression, while preserving a sense of inherent movement. The antlers, rendered with the same conviction as the hands and torso, are not mere adornment but extensions of the figure-symbolizing a profound symbiosis between human and stag.

The painting exists in a visual tension between precision and dynamism. Portrait and symbol merge into a hybrid identity: grounded in substance yet reaching into wilderness. The Buck speaks to primal power, transformation, and the seamless interweaving of humanity with mythic instinct.