Nathaniel Mary Quinn is preparing for his fifth solo exhibition with Gagosian, titled “ECHOES FROM COPELAND,” opening September 10. The show is inspired by Alice Walker’s 1970 novel *The Third Life of Grange Copeland*, which Quinn read twice and found deeply resonant. The works continue his signature style of fragmented, abstract-figurative portraits using oils, pastels, and charcoal, while also incorporating influences from Francis Bacon exhibitions he saw in London. Quinn’s practice draws heavily on his own traumatic upbringing—his mother died when he was 15 and he was abandoned by other family members—and his compositions evoke fragmented memories.
This exhibition matters because it marks a significant evolution in Quinn’s career, showing how he is expanding his visual language by integrating literary narrative and spatial elements from landscape and architecture. His work is already held by major institutions including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Broad, and the Art Institute of Chicago, and this show signals his growing prominence in contemporary art. The interview also highlights how Quinn uses literature as a springboard for formal experimentation, bridging abstraction and figuration in ways that deepen his emotional and thematic range.