The Way I Work... Nathaniel Mary Quinn
The gift New York-based artist Nathaniel Mary Quinn had for drawing was spotted early. Local gang members in the South Side of Chicago, where Quinn grew up, would offer protection in exchange for him featuring them in his comic books. This same gift won him a scholarship to Culver Academies boarding school in Indiana. It was here, a month in, that Quinn received the news his mother had died. Many months after her funeral, he returned home for Thanksgiving, only to discover his father and brothers, shattered by grief and addiction, had abandoned the family apartment – never to be seen again. He was 15 years old. Three decades on, this undoubtedly traumatic childhood experience underpins Quinn’s work; bold, often unsettling, disfigured compositions, created using fragments of memory and family photography. He describes The Forging Years – his most recent exhibition at Gagosian in Paris – as “a visual representation of a narrative that was told to me regarding the circumstances surrounding the death of my mother and the correlation between her death and my oldest brother’s drug addiction… A new identity was forged during that time. That’s why I call it the forging years.” He speaks to Service95 Global Editorial Director Funmi Fetto about the inspiration behind his art, the joys of the grey area and why he might be the next Marie Kondo…
On His Morning Routine… Around 9.30 or 10am, I take a walk and have coffee with my wife for an hour and a half in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn where we live. We share thoughts, ideas and catch up on things. When we get home I have a workout – which makes me feel really accomplished – and then I work in my studio at the top of our brownstone till around midnight or 1am.
On Marriage… I’ve been taking morning walks with my wife for 14 years. I believe a marriage should be an everyday date. It doesn’t have to cost money. It’s just spending time with your partner. Every day. So you always maintain that bond, that contact, and you listen to each other. This helps to keep the marriage healthy.
On The Grey Area… I listen to the Fresh Air podcast with Terry Gross, The Joe Rogan Experience and YouTube platforms discussing politics. Democratic, Republican, Liberal, Conservative… I listen to everything. I am very curious about the world and specifically politics. I’m curious to hear both sides of the coin – the grey area – which unfortunately many people don’t seem interested in these days.
On His Working Playlist… Kendrick Lamar’s latest album, Al Green and Brian McKnight set the perfect mood for me while I’m working.
On Inspirational Protagonists… I grew up reading comic books, so I love Marvel movies; I’ve even included body parts of comic book characters in my work. I try to give my art a film-like quality with an emotion that can be delivered and received by the viewer. The films I find particularly inspiring happen to be those where the protagonist has shortcomings. Or is debilitated in certain ways. Like Forrest Gump or Awakenings with Robin Williams. I can connect and empathise with those characters because as an artist I can often feel like the protagonist in those films.
On His Working Uniform… I wear giant trousers, a T-shirt and sandals with socks every day at work. I don’t have a particular scent; I tried burning candles in the studio at one point, but it didn’t last very long. I thought I needed to be more esoteric but realised, this is not me and I’m not Erykah [Badu].
On The Show That Changed Everything… I saw the Francis Bacon exhibition at the Royal Academy of Art in London a few years ago and it ignited a monumental change in my practice, the way I saw my artwork and the way I saw myself. I cried throughout the entire show because I felt like I had a genuine, internalised kinship with this man. Here I am, an American Black man from the South Side of Chicago having a deep kinship with this Irish-born, British-raised guy who lived in an entirely different era of history… It was intellectual and emotionally moving – the best exhibition I’ve ever seen in my entire life.
On Artists He Admires… To me, Liu Xiaodong, the Chinese contemporary painter is one of the most complete figurative painters in the world. Adrian Ghenie, the Romanian painter, is the best abstract, figurative painter on earth. I say that with 10 toes down. And I also love Kerry James Marshall. He’s the greatest narrative painter alive.
On Social Media… I’m on social media, but I’m not very active. I only post when I have a show coming up or something I want to share. I don’t post pictures of my dinner or a cat running up the street or me crying about a breakup. If I need to cry, I cry to my wife – she’s my social media.
On His Favourite App… The Photo App holds so many photos I’ve taken for research, which I’ll reference in my art. It could be anything from a certain shoe shape to a screenshot of Denzel Washington wearing a fur coat in American Gangster.
On Career Advice… There’s no such thing as a shortcut to success. You have to work very hard to achieve the things you want to achieve in life.
On Minimal Living… If I wasn’t a full-time artist, I would go into people’s homes and organise their space, like Marie Kondo. Your home serves two purposes. Firstly, as a safe and comfortable refuge. The second is that everything in your house should serve a function and have a place. If you have anything in your house that is not serving a function or has nowhere to live, it ought to be evicted. Most people collect stuff that fills their space and compromises on the first purpose of your house. Get rid of all your shit, it will set you free.
Funmi Fetto is the Global Editorial Director of Service95 and a Contributing Editor at British Vogue
