WE CAN’T FLY

Saint Cloche Gallery.

5 - 23 August.

Official Opening Celebrations Friday 7 August.

We Can't Fly explores the quiet mythology between parents and their children.

The exhibition takes its title from a moment between Quinn's daughters. Hearing four-year-old Luna reassure her younger sister, "Don't worry Nina, Dad's a superhero," became the catalyst for the work. The words captured the way young children see their parents—as figures of strength, certainty and protection.

Rather than reinforcing that mythology, Quinn gently inverts it. His paintings suggest it is the children who embody those qualities. Their honesty, imagination and unconditional love become the true symbols of strength, while parents, aware of their own flaws and vulnerabilities, are left humbled by the unwavering faith placed in them.

Throughout the exhibition, references to Luna and Nina reflect the freedom that shapes Quinn's practice. Faces smeared with bright red lipstick recall the girls' countless transformations using their grandmother's famously non-removable lipstick, while the hyper-masculine hero He-Man is reimagined as a young girl inspired by Nina's bob haircut—playfully challenging inherited ideas of who gets to be a hero.

At the centre of the exhibition is a photograph of Quinn with his late father in Bali in 2001, accompanied by a handwritten note that reads, "Thank you for all you've given me." Written during the final years of his father's life, it quietly completes the circle between parent and child.

We Can't Fly is ultimately about that reversal. Children begin life believing their parents are superheroes. As that illusion fades, parents often come to realise that the real superheroes were the children all along.