Nathaniel Mary Quinn Brings Deconstructed Portraits to Rhona Hoffman Gallery

After launching his first exhibition with Gagosian last September, Nathaniel Mary Quinn has arrived at Chicago’s Rhona Hoffman Gallery with an exhibition entitled “Soil, Seed, and Rain.” The new paintings and works on paper continue to highlight Quinn’s exploration of the human form, as he deconstructs portraits of people in a style he calls “expressionistic cubism.”

Testing the boundaries between abstraction and figuration, Quinn approaches his subjects in an elemental, pared-down way. His latest works showcase his interest in the emotions of his subjects over their literal representation. “When you try to describe [love] with words, it loses that specificity, but with with my work, I’m trying to give it a tangible form,” Quinn has said.

Each composition is carried out in response to a few initial strokes of paint laid out on the painting’s surface; this unmediated energy then guides the image. “Those initial strokes are the most fervent, most honest, most genuine,” Quinn explains. “Those are the strokes that are far less likely to be controlled or conditioned.”

Check out select works from “Soil, Seed, and Rain” in the slideshow above. The exhibition will run from now until March 28.

In case you missed it, HYPEBEAST sat down with Nathaniel Mary Quinn to the perception of his identity, his creative processes and more.

Rhona Hoffman Gallery
1711 W Chicago Ave
Chicago, IL 60622