John Moores 25
This exhibition is being held at the Walker Art Gallery, 20 September 2008 - 9 January 2009
Oil on linen, 183 x 297 cm, 2008
This work quotes from 'Desolation', the concluding piece in 'The Course Of Empire'
cycle by Thomas Cole. Its overt visual narrative of a confidently pessimistic version
of morality was informed by the historical backdrop of recent epic events. In my
painting the scene arrogates markers of cultural and historical identity: a faded 1968
poster of Mao, an old campaigner's tent in an all but abandoned landscape with
the remnants of a body spontaneously combusted and a boy asleep on a grave - a
symbol from German romantic painting. It develops a coherent and incoherent
narrative between disparate periods and symbols, not an identity parade of cultural
references that require recognition. Occupation, horror, abandonment spiked with
beauty and bathos - the possibility and impossibility of the resolution of everything.
Ged Quinn was born in Liverpool in 1963. He
studied at The Ruskin School of Drawing Oxford 1982-85, The Slade
School of Fine Art London 1985-87, and the Kunstakademie Dusseldorf
1988-89. Recent group shows include 'Wonderings...' The Great Unsigned
London 2005, 'Salon Nouveau' Engelholm Engelhorn Vienna 2007, 'Rockers
Island' Olbricht Collection Essen 2007 and 'Jekyll Island' Honor Fraser
Gallery LA 2008. Recent solo shows are 'Utopia Dystopia' Tate St Ives
2004, 'The Heavenly Machine' Spike Island Bristol 2005 and 'My Great
Unhappiness Gives Me a Right to Your Benevolence' Wilkinson London 2007.
He features in 'Made Up' in the Liverpool Biennial 2008 Tate Liverpool.
Wilkinson Gallery website featuring Ged Quinn