reviews > St Louis, MO

Quinlan Maggio
Quinlan Maggio

3/21/15 3:18 PM

It’s not easy to be a painter, after painting has died its thousand deaths and sustained its thousand reincarnations. Quinlan Maggio wrestles with two of the big questions facing those interested in brush and canvas today. One is philosophical: What to do with painting? Maggio answers this in her choice of subject matter, a Magritte-esque array of dislocated objects, including the requisite bowler hat, which seem to pose profound riddles. The other question is practical: What to do with paintings? That’s a storage issue, really, and Maggio is one part witty and two parts wise in her solution. Treat paintings as if they were theater flats and display them likewise, propped up against one another, in overlapping layers that make an unexpectedly appealing mix of abstractions, landscapes and architectural studies.

—Lori Waxman 3/21/15 3:18 PM