Project Room: Incantations

Bringing together a new body of paintings in the Project Room, the exhibition introduces Quinn’s distinctive psychological worlds through an exploration of transformation: the changes we desire, those we resist, and those whose consequences we cannot anticipate. An incantation is an act of will: words spoken in the hope of transforming a person, an object or a situation. In Quinn’s paintings, however, change rarely remains within anyone’s control. Her characters inhabit moments in which something is about to shift, or has already begun. The anticipation of what might follow gives these scenes their intensity, holding the viewer at a point where possibility and apprehension are inseparable. Created during a year of relocation, pregnancy and approaching motherhood, the paintings emerged from Quinn’s own experience of profound change. Their shared concerns became apparent as the works developed, rather than following a predetermined narrative. The excitement and disorientation of this period find expression through characters whose stories extend beyond autobiography, drawing on mythology and folklore to explore the uncertain relationship between personal agency and forces beyond the self. Working primarily in oil on canvas, Quinn brings the allegorical language of Baroque painting into contact with the atmosphere of film noir. Dramatic light lends ordinary objects an unfamiliar significance, while her compositions suggest events unfolding beyond the frame. Fruit becomes an object of overwhelming desire; a gesture carries the possibility of danger. These elements offer clues without resolving the narrative, allowing each painting to retain something of the elusive logic of a dream. In Lilith, Quinn revisits a figure often defined by defiance, imagining her in quiet contemplation of her banishment and its enduring consequences. Psyche’s Bind turns towards a more immediate pressure: hands surround a closely framed figure, leaving their origin uncertain. The painting asks how far the constraints we experience are imposed upon us, and how far we participate in their making. Across these works, Quinn gives familiar stories an intimate emotional complexity. Her figures draw on the women of Weimar-era cinema, Madame d’Ora’s photographs and the paintings of Christian Schad and Otto Dix. Their unsettling presence reflects Quinn’s interest in beauty complicated by tension. This ambiguity also shapes her process. Light is established by wiping back the first layer of paint to expose the white canvas, then building translucent colour around it. Earlier marks and revisions remain visible, allowing the finished image to carry traces of its own transformation. In the exhibition’s title painting, a woman rests beside a burning flower, recalling the contemplative imagery of Georges de La Tour. Whether she has set the transformation in motion or can only witness it remains unresolved. Here, Incantations finds its central question: what happens when the change we have called for acquires a life of its own?