View Inside: Cathy Nan Quinlan

All photographs by Paul D’Agostino.

Cathy Nan Quinlan’s current body of paintings—many of which will be shown at Outpost Gallery, in Bushwick, later this fall—are optically playful, chromatically ranging, formally harmonious and compositionally soaring odes to clouds, light, air, skies. They were a transportive treat to take in while she and I talked about hometown humidities, hurricanes, and debatable states of ecstasy.

We also looked at her exquisite plant drawings and discussed the joys of rendering and erasing, and we ruminated for a while on how curious it is that even simple, colorless pencil markings seem sometimes to convey with surprising fullness the chromatico-curvilinear complexities of flora.

We also talked about quirky 19th-century texts, malleable lives, rediscovered flooring tiles and, last but not least, tomatoes. Of the latter, I left with one true prize winner.

Here are some photos of Cathy and her work in her Bed-Stuy studio. For more images and info, visit her website.