Quinn Gorbutt is Director of Exhibitions and Lead Lab Technician at the Aviary Gallery. “Near Than Far, Near Then Far” is first solo show at the Aviary.
Photos by Quinn Gorbutt
Gorbutt’s show intersperses straight photographs, abstract photograms, stitched canvases, and works whose process of origin isn’t quite clear. He resists the urge to explain each piece’s genesis story in the show itself (although he’s happy to tell you in person if you ask), abstracting his works from their source as an organizational strategy. His stitched canvas works serve as an entry point for understanding the make up of the rest of the show.
Stitched canvas works by Quinn Gorbutt
Just as the canvases were drop-clothes in their former lives, the utilitarian re-purposed and stitched together, so is the entire show stitched together from art created from non-art sources. Darkroom trials become final products. Documents of the construction of a work not seen become the work themselves. The markers of process become the final works.
Photograms created in the color darkroom by Quinn Gorbutt
Yet they lack any sort of hurried or half-finished quality; they are crisp and clean, only traces of the artist’s hand remaining. Gorbutt is not restricted by limitations of what is and isn’t photographic, he uses the materials available to him, but doesn’t let the source control the finished piece – limited materials don’t mean limited results. “Near Than Far, Near Then Far” is clever and wryly playful, conceptual without becoming detached from the physical (or perhaps conceptual because of the physical) and a fun show to explore and question.
Photos by Quinn Gorbutt
Quinn’s integral presence in the gallery will be missed when he leaves to attend Yale’s MFA program in the Fall, but I can’t wait to see how his work flourishes in the grad program.
Don’t forget to check out Quinn Gorbutt’s website http://quinngorbutt.net/
Instead of sticking to strict linear sequencing, he embraces anti-curation, or the curation of chance, using a randomizing algorithm to shuffle which two images will be displayed together.
Learn more about the show at the Aviary Gallery here.
http://aviarygallery.com/
Images courtesy of Quinn Gorbutt.