Yesterday I visited Jonathan Quinn in his Bushwick studio to have a look at lots of new paintings and photographs before he ships most of them off to Laguna Beach, California, for his forthcoming solo show at Townley Contemporary.
While Jonathan shuffled through and showed me a wealth of recent works, some already partially wrapped, we talked about atmospheric humor, aqueous fathoms and things unfathomable, continuous instants in paint as opposed to photographically captured pasts, the variable necessities of candy-blues and calming mattes, and symmetrical ambiguities and symmetries broken.
We also talked about the relative ironies of painting seas and skies in the confines of a windowless studio in Brooklyn. And Jonathan told me about an old Elizabeth Taylor film I should look up, The Sandpiper, because in it the great Hollywood icon plays the role of a painter.
So I looked it up, only to find out that the film in question—shot somewhere in the vicinity of Laguna Beach, apparently—also features Charles Bronson playing the role of a sculptor. Sold.
Jonathan’s show at Townley opens July 7th. A few images from my visit are below. More information and images are on Jonathan’s gallery page here, and even more images are on his personal website here.
Paul D’Agostino, Ph.D. is an artist, writer, translator, curator and professor living in Bushwick, Brooklyn. More information about him is available here, and you can find him as @postuccio on Instagram and Twitter.
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