Archived Exhibition

Why E? New Chapters by Justin Quinn and Tara Thacker - Sculpture

March 8 – April 12, 2007
Opening reception on Thursday, March 8 from 5 to 7pm
Exhibition review:
"Deaf, illiterate and self-trained, and with a perspective all his own" (exerpt)
Kenneth Baker, Saturday, March 24, 2007 (SF Chronicle)

MMGalleries (formerly Michael Martin Galleries) is pleased to announce the opening of their new exhibition featuring new chapters by Justin Quinn, and a selection of Tara Thacker’s porcelain sculptures. Quinn translates his personal obsessions into exquisitely subtle artworks that explore, amplify, and ultimately celebrate, the single element, the ordinary, and the repetitive. Thacker’s monochromatic porcelain sculptures, gathered to create fields and landscapes, possess a tactile yet abstract, quality.

Why E? New Chapters by Justin Quinn
Justin Quinn continues to explore the distance between reading and seeing through the use of the letter E. This letter has become a surrogate for all letters in the alphabet, presenting a universal yet unreadable language. By transcribing Herman Melville’s epic Moby Dick into this simplified system, we see the transformation of a classic text into strings of letterforms that are at once majestic and impulsive.

Using specific chapters as sources for the works transforms Melville’s writings into labyrinthine and spiraling compositions that call to mind Captain Ahab’s monomaniacal quest for the White Whale. Since 1998 Quinn has been exploring this space through the use of letterforms, and has used the letter E as his primary starting point.

Justin Quinn currently lives and works in St. Cloud, Minnesota, where he is Assistant Professor of Printmaking at the Saint Cloud State University. Since 1999, Quinn's works on paper have been included in over eighty exhibitions, both national and international. His teaching, his exhibitions, and his role as a moderator and panelist at national conferences currently make Quinn one of the most brilliant figure in Printmaking.