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'The medium of paint, how it works chemically – I had to learn it the hard way.' —Lauren Quin
Presenting a psychedelic tangle of thick, tubular forms that appear to be burrowing into the densely layered surface of the canvas, the characteristically immersive and large-scale Airsickness marks the auction debut of one of Los Angeles’ most exciting and in-demand emerging artists. Hailed as ‘the painter doing abstraction her own way’, Lauren Quin has developed an electrifying visual language that combines strikingly organic - even corporeal - forms with an intensely saturated palette and pulsating kinetic energy.i Bringing to mind twisted plant roots, bundles of arteries, or microbial life, Quin’s forms possess a rhythmic vitality that animates the entire surface of the canvas.
Although having completed her MFA with the prestigious Yale School of Art in 2018, Quin describes her practice as largely self-taught, crediting her untrained father as an important and highly formative influence in her youth. It was an encounter with the so-called ‘tubism’ of the French Cubist Fernand Léger’s early work however that firmly set the young Quin on her own path.
'I looked at Léger’s paintings as antithetical to mine in the way that they were organised, and I wanted to make something with that organisational tool' —Lauren Quin
Characterised by their bold palette and graphic sense of line, Léger’s paintings adapted Cubist methods and ways of looking, applying them to an art of everyday modern life. Fascinated by mechanical and industrial imagery, Léger incorporated these elements into his paintings, generating spatially complex fields of fragmented cylindrical forms viewed from multiple perspectives.
Fernand Léger, Le passage à niveau, Esquisse (The Railway Crossing, Sketch), 1919, The Art Institute of Chicago. Image: The Art Institute of Chicago/Art Resource, NY/Scala, Florence, Artwork: © ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2022Picking up on the compositional possibilities of these volumetric cylinders, and the ways in which Léger used them to organise light and structure in his work, Quin adopted the tube and reimagined it as ‘a rule to bend – a rule to break’, with highly innovative results.ii
Airsickness is typical of Quin’s most recent body of work in its focus on these luminous, knotted tubes. Starting with these forms, which Quin manipulates into tunnel shapes through drawing and the application of gradients, she gradually builds up the surface of her work in a series of dense layers. The strikingly organic quality of these tubular forms works on a technical as well as visual level, the artist etching into the still-wet surface of her canvases with butter knives or medical spoons dipped in turpentine, revealing the layers of paint below and creating contrasting, overlaid ripples that vibrate across the canvas. Highly energetic, the densely patterned surface radically disrupts the viewer’s perspective in a manner that recalls the compositional complexity of Albert Oehlen’s ‘computer paintings’, and the layered multimedia landscapes of fellow contemporary artists Sarah Sze and Avery Singer.
Left: Albert Oehlen, U.D.O 15, 2001 – 2005, Galería Juana de Aizpuru, Madrid. Image: Album/Scala, Florence, Artwork: © Albert Oehlen. All Rights Reserved, DACS 2022
Right: Detail of the present workAt first glance Quin’s works seem to have the quality of digital collage, her careful use of gradient motifs appearing to reference computer tools and image-making. However, her methods are in fact remarkably analogue, involving drawing, scratching, systematic mark-making, and a form of trace mono-printing whereby the surface of the work is gently pressed onto an ink-covered pane of glass, staining the carved line drawings. Alongside this internal interplay of etched, printed, and painted layers that Quin likens to naturally occurring moiré patterns, her tendency to work on multiple paintings at once generates a profound sense of organic growth that moves beyond the picture’s edge, closely binding these works together through their shared biomorphic structure. Organic, sensual, and highly active, Airsickness truly comes alive in the flesh, its snaking tubes evoking a sense of movement that oscillates between the microscopic and the interdimensional.
Collector’s Digest
• Just this year, Lauren Quin has been the subject of significant critical attention, with works recently acquired by prestigious institutions including the Institute of Contemporary Arts, Miami, the Walker Arts Centre, Minnesota, and the X Museum in Beijing. Airsickness represents the artist’s auction debut.
• Quin opened her first European solo show Bat’s Belly at Loyal Gallery Stockholm in June 2021 and presented her second solo exhibition of works at Friends Indeed Galley in San Francisco in July. She has also contributed to important group shows with Blum & Poe, Los Angeles and Downs and Ross in New York.
• Quin was awarded her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2015 and earned her MFA from Yale School of Art in 2019.
i Stephanie Eckardt, ‘In the Studio with Lauren Quin, the Painter Doing Abstraction Her Own Way’, W Magazine, 8 July 2021, online
ii Stephanie Eckardt, ‘In the Studio with Lauren Quin, the Painter Doing Abstraction Her Own Way’, W Magazine, 8 July 2021, online
Provenance
Loyal Gallery, Stockholm
Acquired from the above by the present ownerExhibited
Stockholm, Loyal Gallery, Bat's Belly, 3 June - 17 July 2021, n.p. (illustrated)
Artist Biography
Lauren Quin
Lauren Quin (b. 1992) lives and works in Los Angeles, California. She holds an MFA from the Yale School of Art, New Haven, CT and a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL. She forms her canvases by painting repeated, intercepted, and reconnected shapes and colors. She is most known for the “tube” shape throughout her compositions. Her work has been the subject of solo exhibitions including her first US museum show My Hellmouth, Nerman Museum of Art, Overland Park, KS (2023); Sagittal Fours, Pond Society, Shanghai, China (2022); Pulse Train Howl, Blum & Poe, Los Angeles, CA (2022), and group exhibitions such as Fire Figure Fantasy: Selections from ICA Miami’s Collection, Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, FL (2022); and On Boxing, Blum & Poe, Los Angeles, CA (2021).
Her work is held in numerous public collections including the Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, OH; Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, CA; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA; Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, FL; Long Museum, Shanghai, China; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA; Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Overland Park, KS; Pérez Art Museum, Miami, FL; Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ; Smart Museum, Chicago, IL; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN and Yuz Museum, Shanghai, China.
Property from an Important European Collection
1
Airsickness
signed and dated 'L Quin 2021' on the reverse
oil on canvas
127 x 229 cm (50 x 90 1/8 in.)
Painted in 2021.
Estimate
£30,000 - 50,000 ‡
Sold for £441,000
Rosanna Widén
Senior Specialist, Head of Evening Sale
+ 44 20 7318 4060
rwiden@phillips.com
Olivia Thornton
Head of 20th Century & Contemporary Art, Europe
+ 44 20 7318 4099
othornton@phillips.com
20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale
London Auction 3 March 2022
1
Lauren Quin
Airsickness
Estimate £30,000 - 50,000 ‡
Sold for £441,000
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2
Doron Langberg
Amy in Her Studio
Estimate £30,000 - 50,000 ‡
Sold for £163,800
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3
Cinga Samson
Ubuhle beenkanyezi VIII
Estimate £50,000 - 70,000 ‡
Sold for £252,000
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4
Kwesi Botchway
The Apprentice Bench
Estimate £50,000 - 70,000 ‡
Sold for £138,600
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5
Rafa Macarrón
Balcones
Estimate £30,000 - 50,000 ‡♠
Sold for £126,000
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6
Jadé Fadojutimi
My Blanket has a Possessive Nature
Estimate £120,000 - 180,000 ♠†
Sold for £529,200
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7
Issy Wood
Chalet
Estimate £100,000 - 150,000 ‡♠
Sold for £441,000
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8
This lot is no longer available.
9
Robert Nava
Sylvia (87 Sylvia)
Estimate £80,000 - 100,000 ‡
Sold for £176,400
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10
Nicolas Party
Houses
Estimate £1,100,000 - 1,500,000 ‡
Sold for £1,474,500
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11
Shara Hughes
Crooked
Estimate £180,000 - 250,000 ‡
Sold for £627,500
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12
Cecily Brown
When Time Ran Out
Estimate £2,000,000 - 3,000,000 ‡♠
Sold for £3,168,500
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13
Yayoi Kusama
Dots Accumulation (WWPER)
Estimate £800,000 - 1,200,000 ‡
Sold for £930,000
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14
Günther Förg
Ohne titel
Estimate £600,000 - 800,000 ‡♠
Sold for £869,500
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15
Gerhard Richter
Abstraktes Bild
Estimate £1,800,000 - 2,500,000 ‡♠
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16
This lot is no longer available.
17
Henry Moore
Family Group
Estimate £300,000 - 400,000 ‡♠
Sold for £403,200
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18
Hurvin Anderson
Untitled (Handsworth Park)
Estimate £1,200,000 - 1,800,000 ‡♠
Sold for £1,337,250
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19
David Hockney
Self-Portrait on the Terrace
Estimate £4,000,000 - 6,000,000 ‡♠
Sold for £4,862,500
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20
Cecily Brown
Blithe Spirit
Estimate £500,000 - 700,000 ‡♠
Sold for £845,300
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21
This lot is no longer available.
22
Alexander Archipenko
Statue on a Triangular Base
Estimate £100,000 - 150,000 ‡
Sold for £138,600
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23
Francis Bacon
Untitled (Head)
Estimate £600,000 - 800,000 ‡♠
Sold for £772,700
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24
This lot is no longer available.
25
Banksy
Laugh Now Monkeys with Monkey Placards
Estimate £1,500,000 - 2,500,000 ‡♠
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26
George Condo
The Rock Thrower
Estimate £500,000 - 700,000 ‡
Sold for £567,000
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27
John Chamberlain
Snatching Bookie Bob
Estimate £150,000 - 200,000 ‡
Sold for £346,500
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28
Ed Ruscha
Huge Conditions
Estimate £1,100,000 - 1,500,000 ‡
Sold for £1,232,500
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29
Claude Monet
Le Golfe Juan
Estimate £900,000 - 1,200,000 ‡
Sold for £1,111,500
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30
Anselm Kiefer
Freia's Garden
Estimate £700,000 - 1,000,000 ‡♠
Sold for £869,500
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31
Harold Ancart
Untitled
Estimate £150,000 - 200,000 ‡♠
Sold for £504,000
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32
Jadé Fadojutimi
A Cropped Perspective of This Whirlwind Effect
Estimate £150,000 - 200,000 ♠
Sold for £627,500
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33
Yayoi Kusama
Infinity Nets (SENN)
Estimate £1,200,000 - 1,800,000 ‡
Sold for £1,293,000
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34
This lot is no longer available.
35
Felix Gonzalez-Torres
''Untitled'' (March 5th) #2
Estimate £450,000 - 650,000 ‡
Sold for £504,000
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36
Daniel Buren
Peinture aux formes variables
Estimate On Request
Sold for £881,500
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37
Damien Hirst
Without You
Estimate £500,000 - 700,000 ‡♠
Sold for £627,500
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38
Damien Hirst
Zinc Sulfide
Estimate £350,000 - 550,000 ‡♠
Sold for £346,500
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39
This lot is no longer available.
40
Jack Whitten
Space Busters III
Estimate £400,000 - 600,000 ‡
Sold for £403,200
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41
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Untitled
Estimate £600,000 - 800,000 ‡
Sold for £688,000
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42
KAWS
THIS IS THE WAY
Estimate £600,000 - 800,000 ‡
Sold for £796,900
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43
Serge Attukwei Clottey
Glow girl
Estimate £30,000 - 40,000 ‡
Sold for £151,200
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44
Tschabalala Self
Chandelier 2
Estimate £100,000 - 150,000 ‡
Sold for £138,600
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45
Georg Baselitz
Torso Frau
Estimate £400,000 - 600,000 ‡♠
Sold for £478,800
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46
Renato Guttuso
Aranceto Notturno
Estimate £70,000 - 100,000 ‡♠
Sold for £170,100
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47
David Hockney
The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate, East Yorkshire in 2011 (twenty eleven) - 4 May
Estimate £180,000 - 250,000 ‡♠
Sold for £504,000
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