Bearing the kind of illusionistic appearance that commands a second look, Nathaniel Mary Quinn’s Over Yonder, 2015, coalesces myriad varying textures without ever breaking into physicality. The work’s controlled surface, composed of sliced visual elements sourced from picture clippings, Google images and his own photo albums, oozes a prodigiously explosive aesthetic that Adam Lehrer has described as ‘discord in perfect harmony’ (Adam Lehrer, ‘Nathaniel Mary Quinn’, Forbes, 25 October 2017, online). Demonstrating Quinn’s infallible hand in creating trompe l’oeil imagery, the portrait brings attention to the artist’s tendency to pair seminal art historical themes with deeply intimate meanderings and an irrepressibly contemporary style. Here, traditional portraiture is conveyed as vividly as René Magritte’s The Son of Man, 1964, Romare Bearden’s deconstructed photographs, and David Hammons’ fleetingly evocative body prints, all the while containing elusive traits of an anonymous face, collated and dispersed throughout the work’s surface. Catapulted to fame in recent years, notably on the occasion of his breakout show Past/Present at Pace Gallery, London, in September 2014, Nathaniel Mary Quinn was bestowed his first institutional solo exhibition at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art in 2019.
Enamoured with drawing from a young age, it was Quinn’s brother Charles who first took note of his brother’s talent, urging their mother to keep an eye on his proliferating sketches. Soon thereafter, friends, professors, patrons, and critics acquiesced Quinn’s towering practice in unison; and today, his work is held by such eminent institutions as the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and the Art Institute of Chicago. Yet before experiencing such meteoric ascent, Quinn’s life underwent a number of fractures that left deep wounds within him. His mother passed away when he was just a student, and upon returning home to Chicago from his school shortly after, he found his family apartment empty, with no trace of his father and four brothers. As a result of loss and abandonment, Quinn has said that, ‘Grief was the constant background noise to whatever success I achieved’ (Nathaniel Mary Quinn, ‘Nathaniel Mary Quinn On Painting The Politics Of Race In America’, Vogue, 21 July 2018, online).
Having grown up in a large family on the South Side of Chicago – Quinn was the youngest of five boys – the artist has stated on many occasions that his youth played a quintessential role within the development of his work. ‘There is no doubt that my work is about family’, Quinn has said (Nathaniel Mary Quinn, quoted in Sasha Bogojev, ‘Nathaniel Mary Quinn and the Family of Man’, Juxtapoz, August 2017, online). Endowed with familiar traits whilst simultaneously being plunged in conflated masses of abstraction, Quinn's complex figures reveal subtle allusions to his family members, namely his brother Charles and his mother Mary. The artist’s relationship with his mother was more than just close; it was, in his own words, woven into his very own identity. ‘I took her name ‘cause she never had a formal education’, he exclaimed. ‘Now all of my degrees say “Nathaniel Mary Quinn” [so] my mom has a college degree and a master’s degree and her name is on the walls of the gallery’ (Nathaniel Mary Quinn, quoted in Sasha Bogojev, ‘Nathaniel Mary Quinn and the Family of Man’, Juxtapoz, August 2017, online).
The formal aspect of Quinn’s work, formidably skillful and innovative, is matched in intensity only by the profound emotional impact that his subject matters exude. It furthermore shines with the light of a man who has crystallised pain and transformed it into art. ‘We all experience loss, happiness, we go up, we go down, and we have various experiences that impact who we are and what we may become’, the artist remarked. ‘Pain feels the same way to everybody. It's what binds us all together. And I'm interested in exploring that’ (Nathaniel Mary Quinn, quoted in Sasha Bogojev, ‘Nathaniel Mary Quinn and the Family of Man’, Juxtapoz, August 2017, online).