Metamorphosis:
noun, change of form, structure, or substance, as transformation by magic or witchcraft.
Metamorphosis is the driving theme and creative impulse of Saint Cloche Gallery’s group presentation at Sydney Contemporary 2024, where Saxon Quinn is exhibiting alongside stablemates Evi O and Bec Smith in a collective and multidisciplinary exploration of metamorphic convergence.
Quinn’s practice embodies alchemy and change, with a new body of work melding large-scale painting with ceramic sculpture that encapsulates his signature mashup of personal expression, references, inspiration and mood while also nodding to things to come.
Teasing and tantalising, his elusive yet epic paintings transmute into chameleonic clay figures, shifting from the symphonic to the solid and performing a collective yet private communal dance. The work’s preview at Sydney’s Carriageworks rehearses a much- anticipated new solo exhibition, Masked Masks, at Saint Cloche in October 2024.
Teeming canvases layered in swooshes and splotches of graphite and paint hint at the signs and symbols of global culture and trade, while ceramic figures give a cheeky nod to the marble mythology of ancient empires. The play between mediums and between the singular and the collective is freely performative, with faces shifting in and out of view to suggest the sensory immersion in a crowded concert or street.
Scored across the scratched surfaces of paint and clay are X symbols and question marks – do you love it? – that invite revelry and curiosity. Here the artist pays homage to the CoBrA painters of the 1940s and 1950s – a short-lived international art movement that celebrated the colour and spontaneity of childhood drawings. Quinn’s work channels this same muse of metamorphosis that sees an ephemeral gesture transformed into art.
The theme of revelation is further explored in the artist’s upcoming solo show at Saint Cloche in October. ‘Masked Masks is a metaphor for the way we shield our emotion,’ says Quinn. ‘We present ourselves in a rosy light to others on social media, only to then reveal another version of ourselves in person – a version closer to the truth.’
Saxon Quinn is showing as part of Metamorphosis for Saint Cloche Gallery at Sydney Contemporary 2024, Carriageworks, 5–8 September 2024, ahead of his solo exhibition, Masked Masks, at Saint Cloche Gallery, 16–27 October 2024.
— Michael Fitzgerald, author of Late: A Novel (2023) and Senior Editor at Powerhouse Museum, Sydney
