The “inner portraits” of the American Nathaniel Mary Quinn presented in Paris for the first time in a solo exhibition at Gagosian

His black faces painted in one piece look like clever anatomical collages where the eyes, nose and mouth have an independent life: Nathaniel Mary Quinn, black American and rising figure in contemporary art, exhibits his “inner portraits” from Thursday June 8 until July 27, 2023 in Paris.

Present in several museums in the United States, the forties is delighted with this “very first individual exhibition” in the French capital, at the Gagosian gallery (8th arrondissement), where he presents around fifteen paintings until July 29, he told AFP, all smiles.

Mirror of a painful passage

“Institutions have decided to reawaken the magic and magnificence of black art that they had neglected and which has always been there. Society is changing” he comments, when asked about this recognition in the art world, after retrospectives dedicated to Zanele Muholi or Faith Ringgold in Paris. “But art is art. Caravaggio was good because he was good, not because of his skin color.”

In oil, acrylic and oil pastel, The forging years (the years of forging), title of the exhibition, speak “difficult times” of his life, marked by the death of his mother in troubled circumstances, linked to the drug consumption of his older brother, in debt to dealers. “I was immersed in the fire of life. This experience forged me and recreated my identity. This exhibition tells it”, he confides.

The portraits of his family, of his friends, of his community, make one think of a heap of viscera or organs in which a disturbing look of presence pierces. Kind of “inner portraits” touching on the moods of their owners, they tell the story of a man born in Chicago in 1977 and his childhood in a tense and violent family context. They also speak of collective history and refer to universal themes as well as to the masters of art history.

A certain kinship with Bacon

It is for lack of time that this “obsessed with drawing since childhood” designed in 2013 its “visual language” so particular, which makes it possible to recognize his painting at first glance. “I had to present five canvases for an exhibition, I only had four and I only had five hours to make the fifth. So I concentrated on the essentials: the face and, in this face, the eyes. , nose, mouth and only one ear, nothing else”, he says.

“To stick to the rule that I had set myself, I isolated each part of the face: once drawn, I covered it with paper, before tackling another element. When I removed the “the whole paper was like discovering a gift and the birth of my new visual language, the expression of myself as an artist and a human being”, he adds, imperturbable under his cap, dressed in a white shirt under an elegant jacket, jeans and sneakers.

“This process allowed me to explore a whole human spectrum. It transcends all social beliefs, removes all conditioning and allows me today to express my vulnerability and my empathy to meet the foundations of humanity, which constitutes us “adds this enthusiast of Francis Bacon. “I feel a certain kinship with him and I have studied him a lot”, he continues, also evoking a time spent studying psychology in the field, when he worked with children in difficulty, before devoting himself to art full time.

If his portraits are reminiscent of the use of computer graphics, he confesses not to be too interested in new technologies, apart from social networks. “I don’t think they will have a big impact on creation. For a good and simple reason: they go much faster than human beings, who are still trying to understand themselves. “. After Paris, Nathaniel Mary Quinn will exhibit in the fall in a major European museum whose name has not been disclosed.

“The Forging Years” exhibition by Nathaniel Mary Quinn at the Gagosian Gallery until July 29, 2023. Open Tuesday to Saturday from 10:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.