Sewell’s work looks at youth and popular culture sourced from his own memories and personal experiences, playing with semiotics and perceptions of visual language. His compositions utilize specific objects and images as symbols for exploring constructions of identity and associations of memory and emotion with the subjects presented. While deeply specific to his own personal narrative and life, Sewell’s paintings manage to impart an affective nostalgia through their manipulation of subject matter, which, paired with his almost trompe l’oeil treatment of paint, allows for multiple realities and stories to be read.