Nathaniel Mary Quinn in conversation with Dexter Wimberly from New York Academy of Art on Vimeo.
Photo: Kyle Dorosz. Courtesy the artist.
Each of us is a cacophony of experience. Not just a seamless self.
—Nathaniel Mary Quinn
In his collage-like composite portraits derived from sources both personal and found, Nathaniel Mary Quinn probes the relationship between visual memory and perception. Fragments of images taken from online sources, fashion magazines, and family photographs come together to form hybrid faces and figures that are at once neo-Dada and adamantly realist, evoking the intimacy and intensity of a face-to-face encounter.
Quinn’s passion for drawing began at a young age, while he was growing up on the South Side of Chicago. In ninth grade, he received a scholarship to attend Culver Academies boarding school in Indiana—but a month after arriving at the school, Quinn received news from his father that his mother had suddenly passed away. He returned to Chicago for Thanksgiving the following month, only to find that the rest of his family—his father and brothers—had abandoned his childhood home without a trace. This jarring experience further propelled Quinn’s art, and he decided to commit himself to his education, adding his mother’s name, Mary, to his name so that she would appear on all of his degrees. He received a BA in art and psychology from Wabash College, Crawfordsville, Indiana, in 2000, and an MFA from New York University in 2002.
After completing his MFA, Quinn moved to the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, where he continued to paint while working as a teacher for at-risk youth. In 2013 he had a breakthrough, developing a new technique that would draw wide attention to his work. The mother of one of his students invited Quinn to show five works in an art salon that she was hosting in her home. On the day of the opening, however, he only had four works finished. Improvising, he began to paint a blurred memory of his past, piecing together fragments of images from his subconscious. When he stepped back, he recognized the mouth of his brother Charles.
Nathaniel Mary Quinn, Miss Chairs, 2014.
Charcoal, gouache, oil-pastel, and oil-paint on Coventry Vellum paper, 50 x 43 ½ inches (127 x 110.5 cm)
© Nathaniel Mary Quinn
Dexter Wimberly is an entrepreneur and independent curator who has organized exhibitions and developed programs with galleries and institutions throughout the world including The Third Line, Dubai; Koki Arts, Tokyo; Contemporary Art Museum, Raleigh; and the Museum of Arts and Design, NYC. His exhibitions have been reviewed and featured in publications including The New York Times, Artforum, and Hyperallergic; and have received support from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Wimberly has served on the board of the New York-based arts nonprofit, The Laundromat Project and actively supports other arts organizations. Prior to developing his curatorial practice, Wimberly was the founder and CEO of the pioneering marketing and public relations agency, August Bishop. Wimberly has also served as Director of Communications for The Museum for African Art, NY; Director of Strategic Planning at Independent Curators International, NY; and Executive Director of Aljira, a Center for Contemporary Art in Newark, NJ. In 2018, he founded the professional development company, ART WORLD CONFERENCE, and serves as its CEO.