ofWater: XXH20XX

Matt Quinn

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

PUTTY'S CORONATION is pleased to announce the opening of OFWATER: XXH20XX, a solo exhibition by Matt Quinn at Putty’s Coronation at 1086 Myrtle Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11206 from April 30th - May 21st, 2022. OFWATER is a three-part series of exhibitions by artists who focus on water as an environmental subject, material, and allegory in a time of uncertainty.

In his solo debut at Putty’s Coronation, Matt Quinn presents OFWATER: XXH20XX, a series of sculptures, installations, and video projections.

When submerged deep underwater an immense pressure forces itself onto our human physiology, creating an alternative state of being. It affects the body's circulation, renal system, fluid balance, and breathing. All of this is caused by the external hydrostatic pressure of the water providing support against the internal hydrostatic pressure of the blood. The relationship between water and body, both symbiotic and chaotic, is the foundation for XXH20XX by Matt Quinn. Utilizing physiological pressure to transcend psychological pressure, Quinn confronts the nuances of isolation, sensory dysphoria, and the deprivation that many of us now experience.

In XXH20XX, Quinn has created an immersive aquatic ruin. Using video projections and black lights to simulate the color fields of an aquarium, the viewer is confronted with a massive skeletal structure hanging from the rafters. Assembled from a collection of scrap wood that Quinn has collected from discarded furniture found on the streets of New York, Untitled Underwater Action Playset, invoking the hull of a ship or the bones of a whale. A series of cyanotypes with lines of jagged abstraction evoke architectural blueprints, laying out reconstructive evidence for the suspended ruinous structure . Sitting below the skeletal form, a small sculpture of a diver with shoulders slouched arms heavily resting on its knees, appearing deep in thought as a sculpture ghost fish floating nearby. On the other side of the gallery, a chest is laid opening displaying a video of a puppet spaceman submerged in water, limbs being jostled from the force of an undercurrent.

In Quinn’s aquatic universe the viewer is confronted by a series of elliptic questions and no direct answers. Like the spaceman, we are guided by forces out of our control. In its final manifestation, XXH20XX represents an act of defiance against gravity. The decay of urbanization expressed by outdated maps, overwrought telephone lines, underground power cables, extensions, renovations, subdivisions, and the collection of scaffolds and buttresses holding things together is countered by an aquatic buoyancy. Providing refuge in fleeting moments of tranquility at the bottom of a swimming pool.

Matt Quinn was born on the US Naval base in Groton, Connecticut, the “Submarine Capital of the World”. Growing up in a region known for its history of whaling, fishing, and military boat-building industries, he received a BFA in Sculpture from the Lyme Academy of Fine Arts, and an MFA in Sculpture from Pratt Institute. Quinn also collaborates in multimedia installations/exhibitions in a duo known as the New Atlantis Collective, and he currently lives and works in Brooklyn.