Quin de la Mer United States
I am an artist from Los Angeles, California uniting philosophical notions with artistic practice. In both my process in art making and in content explored, my focus is with the inherent connection between all things. I have exhibited work nationally and internationally in gallery settings, public forums, and film screenings, in addition to being an artist in residence in the US and abroad.
Employing abstract expressionism to communicate the unseen but deeply felt, I create art inspired by beauty bleeding through the scars humans leave in their wake. Intimately, I am moved by emotions that arise while experiencing beauty, wonder, mystery, awe, and the sublime. On the global scale, I make work about intolerable emotions I feel in response to the formations that arise out of collective agreements.
Much of my work is a collaboration with the natural world. For example, cyanotypes are made on site with water and debris where currents, wind, and natural light are the hands that guide the image as it comes into being. With sustainability in mind, I collect minerals, charcoal, and waste stream fragments to make pigments for oil paintings. Using a Holga camera, I create black and white photographs by interacting directly with the world around me as I incorporate light leaks and double exposure techniques into the making of the images. Printing directly onto unexposed 35mm film strips with plant matter foraged in the wild, brings the microcosms that exist within the flora around us, into focus.
My practice crosses media boundaries according to the ideas that come forth while I bond with place and the inhabitants residing there. Often, I am overwhelmed by the devastation of climate change, and I listen carefully to more-than-human residents communicate their experience of the Anthropocene. Inventing new methodologies and technologies and creating hybrid art forms are necessary parts of my process without which my work could not be fully realized.
