Thomas Quinn

As with many contemporary wildlife artists, Quinn began his artistic career as an illustrator. After a life-changing convalescence from liver disease, he abandoned illustration and New York City for Marin County, California, and animal painting. Working mainly in watercolor, he draws subjects from his local environment, depicting them in a spare, Asian style that is clean, sensitive, and alluring. There is meaning within meaning in his works. He condemns contemporary photorealist wildlife artists as "philosophically vacuous" for filling their canvases without regard for the role of negative space in an artist's composition. Quinn first became aware of his admiration for negative space when, as a four-year-old, he was presented with a dollar bill. Scrutinizing it in the privacy of his room, he determined to improve upon its "noisy" design by relieving some of its excesses with scissors!