Nathaniel Mary Quinn
Class of 92, 2015.
About:
“Where I lived was populated by gang violence, I grew up seeing shootings and killings. Everyone living there was a witness to poverty and crime. You knew at a young age you could be killed,” he said.
Growing up, conditions were hard, with the lights constantly being disconnected, and his family turning on the oven to heat the apartment.
June Bug, 2015.
He managed to avoid joining a gang, although most of his friends did. He was known instead for his art, something he had done since a small child.
“I’ve been making art my entire life,” Mr Quinn said. He learnt to draw by copying comic books and he became known as an artist in the neighbourhood.
“I’ve always wanted to be an artist; there was never any question about that in my life. All my friends knew me as an artist. I was challenged to art duels by other kids.”
Pilcher, 2015.
He secured a scholarship to a prestigious private college Culver Military Academy in Indiana at the age of 15, which would prove his way out of the projects. “I woke up there and heard birds singing, and I knew I was in a different land altogether; I was accustomed to waking up to gunshots.”
Yet his mother died a month after he joined Culver, and then weeks after that he returned home to find his father and four brothers had left. He has not seen them in the 22 years since. “My life since that was not good. I was drinking a lot and in constant distress and pain,” he said.
The Making of a Super Nigga, 2015.
After high school, college and then graduate school he worked as a substitute teacher and then taught at-risk youth in the criminal justice system.
Less than a year ago his art career took an “upward swing,” when he started painting about issues from his upbringing and his family history and he could give up his day job. “I find making art now thrilling. It used to feel like a job, but now it feels fun and challenging.”
He added: “The whole thing about the buzz is surreal. It feels like I’m getting a gain in my life that is equivalent to all I have lost in my life. I’ve lost my entire family, my sense of belonging. Now I feel God is giving it to me back tenfold.” (quotes from article in The Independent, November 2014, author: Nick Clark) (Courtesy: Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago)