About the Exhibition
Elevate at 21c presents temporary exhibitions of works by artists living and working in the communities surrounding Kansas City. Elevate provides hotel guests with unique access to the work of notable regional artists while featuring their work in the context of 21c’s contemporary art space.
Emily Blair Quinn paints female figurines whose faces and expressions reveal a spectrum of psychoanalytic extremes and a progression on the road to emotional intelligence. Her process begins with a treasure hunt for figurines that appear haunted, sad, pensive, sexual, or otherwise easy to anthropomorphize and then transforms them through paint, wax, and resin, before photographing them and using them as the basis for her paintings. Quinn uses bright colors and dark humor to engage viewers, making her work a catalyst for uncensored conversations about vulnerability, empathy, and connection.
Quinn was born in Decatur, Alabama in 1990 and is currently based in Kansas City, MO. The artist received her MFA from the University of Colorado in Boulder in 2016 and her BFA from Auburn University in Alabama (2013). In addition to recent solo exhibitions and inclusion in group exhibitions across the country, Quinn’s work has been published in New American Paintings, Create Magazine, Studio Visit Magazine, and VoyageKC Magazine.
Quinn is represented by Marquee Projects in Bellport, NY.
