Samuel Quinteros – Contemporary Artist

“And then one encounters something remarkable. So often these days one can see exactly what a painter is doing, working through 1 + 1 to discover that, yes indeed, it = … [and you’ve arrived at the terminus of
that equation before they have]. But with these fresh specimens of the form I have no idea what they are doing (OK, I have some idea), much less how they are doing it. And I can’t look away. Real enigmas of an idiosyncratic approach to fusing symbolism and technique rather than manufactured mystery – no one is painting quite like this in Australia right now. They remind me of an observation an old friend made the other day as we chatted over WhatsApp: “so many with mere personality; so few with real character.”” 

– Pedro de Almeida, Senior Curator, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA)

Quinteros’ paintings are inspired by ancient artistic traditions that focus on the body source of visual interest. Intensifying the sensual qualities and mixing them with an eerie stillness, the paintings intend to tell a story about about the living world of inner space. Like suggestive traces on the surface of a container, or a vessel that emits a pervasive fragrance, the image becomes diaphanous to its inner essence.

Samuel Quinteros (b.1992, Australia) graduated with honours from Sydney College of the Arts in 2013. He has exhibited extensively in Australia, and internationally in New Zealand, Singapore & Japan. Quinteros was awarded the Zelda Stedman Young Artist Scholarship (2011), the Australia Council Visual Arts Travel Fund (2013), the Marten Bequest Travelling Scholarship (2015), was a finalist in Perth Institute of Contemporary Art’s Hatched 2013, The Doug Moran National Portrait Prize (2017), and The Shirl National Youth Portrait Prize (2017). He has formerly been represented by Galerie pompom (Sydney), with four solo exhibitions between 2014 – 2020, and has recently been working with Redbase Gallery, Sydney.