Nathaniel Mary Quinn

I hope to convey a sense of how our experiences, both good and bad, operate to construct our identities. I also want to portray a mutual relationship between the acceptable and the unacceptable, the grotesque and what is aesthetically pleasing.
—Nathaniel Mary Quinn

Gagosian is pleased to present NOT FAR FROM HOME; STILL FAR AWAY, an exhibition of new paintings and works on paper by Nathaniel Mary Quinn. This is his first exhibition with the gallery in New York.

In striking composite portraits rendered in charcoal, gouache, oil paint, oil stick, and pastel, Quinn probes the relationship between perception and memory. Bringing together visual fragments from a variety of sources—including online media, fashion magazines, comic books, and family snapshots—he conjures hybrid faces and figures that are neo-Dadaist in their fractured appearance, yet realist in their carefully painted details and overall psychological effect—a divide that speaks to the intensity of in-person encounters.

With these portraits, Quinn furthers his dynamic take on the Surrealist strategy of the cadavre exquis. Working without preliminary sketches, he produces near perfect simulations of torn-paper collages. Rough-hewn yet precisely realized, these disjunctive visions are consistent with the complicated personalities and social issues they represent. By focusing on the multifaceted and mercurial nature of the subconscious mind—and by relating key episodes and individuals from the past to larger societal currents—Quinn transcends simple likeness in his portraits to achieve a visceral fusion of invention and recollection.