QuintGallery.com

The fiction of flatness is on full display in “Behind What It’s In Front Of,” the debut exhibition conceived by Seattle-based artist and designer Roy McMakin in Quint Contemporary’s crisp new downtown La Jolla gallery. The show pairs McMakin’s furniture-qua-sculpture with the minimalist canvases of the so-called “Hard-Edge” painter John McLaughlin (1898-1976), creating a visual relationship that works to dispel the popular myth that a surface can ever be flat.

McLaughlin’s paintings are high contrast formal reductions consisting exclusively of rectilinear forms rendered in a cool, muted palette. They are abstract configurations that suggest architectural elements like columns, doors, or windows. The contrast and position of these forms create weighted spatial fields, wherein shapes are ambiguously pulled forward or pushed back in illusionistic fashion. Juxtaposed to these are McMakin’s sculptures, blocky pieces of furniture that read like sculpted likeness of McLaughlin’s canvases, a sense heightened by their similarly painted schema. The McMakin objects are installed between the paintings on the walls or situated free-standing in the room, jutting out into space much the way McLaughlin purports to do illusionistically, establishing the primary visual rapport between the two artists.

Mark Quint stands in Quint Contemporary Art, one of the few San Diego galleries that helped launch the city’s art scene. The painting behind him is a San Diego artist Kim MacConnel. Opposite: Frequent trips to the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego keep Quint abreast of new trends and talent, both locally and nationally. Shown is the museum’s La Jolla location, featuring Nancy Rubin’s Pleasure Point sculpture.

Mark Quint anticipated a short stay when he returned to his hometown of San Diego 30 years ago to try his hand at owning and operating a contemporary art space. “I figured I’d eventually move to New York or Los Angeles to be more immersed in the art world,” he says. “I knew there wasn’t a whole lot going on gallery-wise in San Diego.” So, at a time when merely a handful of exhibition spaces existed in the city, Quint founded his eponymous gallery, now located in La Jolla, showing the works of local artist friends he made during his schooling at the San Francisco Art Institute. Recognition quickly ensued for Quint’s fresh mix of emerging talent and, shortly after, for his efforts to make both national and international artists’ work more accessible to the city—a mission that prompted Quint to develop, along with local collector Michael Krichman, a program that invites artists from around the world to live, work and exhibit in San Diego. “I like to think I’m an artist’s dealer,” he says. “I really listen to the artists about what they want and who they recommend. I think that’s partly why I’ve been so fortunate in my work.”

Quint Contemporary Art will be participating in this year’s ART SAN DIEGO | Contemporary Art Fair. Come by and visit us at booths 25 & 33!

September 2 – 5, 2010
Hilton San Diego Bayfront San Diego, CA

ADAM BELT | MEL BOCHNER | KELSEY BROOKS | STEPHEN P. CURRY | ROMAN DE SALVO | MANNY FARBER | THOMAS GLASSFORD | JAY JOHNSON | JEAN LOWE | KIM MACCONNEL | RYAN MCGINNESS | JOHN MCLAUGHLIN | ROY MCMAKIN | TAVARES STRACHAN | and more!