Lauren Quin’s Psychedelic Paintings ‘Knocked Out’ Pace’s Founder. The Rest Is History.

“It knocked me out.” That’s how Pace founder Arne Glimcher remembers his first visit to Lauren Quin’s studio. After showing the painter’s manic, neon-tinged abstractions at its downtown offshoot 125 Newbury in 2024, the mega-gallery announced her representation last August, and she’s slated for a solo show takeover of its outpost in Los Angeles opening in January. Quin’s iconography is just as seductive, idiosyncratic, and sprawling as her hometown.

Describe one work you’ve made that captures who you are as an artist.

Sometimes, I will make a painting that sits up and sings for me—where it feels like I am cutting plastic, and the scissors start to glide. Then, there are paintings that torture me. They will take months or years to complete, and every inch is fought for. I prefer the struggle, because it shows me how to make the next five paintings. Cub Cross was one of those paintings—the sum of it is more than its parts.

Imagine someone gives you $150,000 to make anything you want—no strings. What are you making?

I am not being clever when I tell you, I am making what I want already. But, I have a pipe dream to build a sauna gallery in my backyard where people would make an appointment to sweat privately with a show. I would install a J.B. Blunk piece, or something conductive like a Josef Strau aluminum painting. It would serve well for a ceramics show of course, but [Francis] Picabia used to bake his paintings in the oven…

What’s an underrated studio tool you can’t live without?

Theracane, butter knife, boba straws.

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