Christian Quin Newell is a London-based painter whose work investigates the evolution of images through painting. Drawing from dreams, mythology, historical painting and symbolic systems, he constructs compositions that emerge through an extended process of drawing, collage and image development before being realised in oil on canvas.
Rather than illustrating fixed narratives, Newell’s paintings present figures and environments suspended between multiple psychological and symbolic states. Memory, imagination and art history converge to produce images that feel at once familiar and elusive, resisting singular interpretation.
For Newell, painting is both a form of research and a material practice. While each work begins as an evolving image, the act of painting transforms that vision through the physical qualities of pigment, oil and canvas. The finished painting becomes the final stage of an image’s evolution, carrying a life that extends beyond its maker.
Born 1991 in Latisana, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italy
Lives and works in London, United Kingdom
Solo & two person exhibitions
2025 The Light Burns the Reality, Sixi Museum, Nanjing, China
2024 The Way, Public Gallery, London, UK
2022 Siena, Various Small Fires, Los Angeles, CA, USA
2021 Earth altar, Public Gallery, London, UK
Apotheosis, WT Foundation, Kyiv, Ukraine
Group exhibitions
2026 After the Encounter, Almine Rech, Brussels, Belgium
at twilight / at dawn, Public Gallery, London, UK
2025 Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme, Galeria Pelaires, Palma, Spain
00:00:01, Public Gallery, London, UK
2024 In saying these things, I went to sleep, Nova Contemporary, Bangkok, Thailand
I Go to Seek a Great Perhaps, Make Room, Los Angeles, USA
2023 Face to Face, Marlborough Gallery, London, UK
Touchstones, Sargent’s Daughters, New York, NY, USA
2022 Fire Sermon, Curated by Adriana Blidaru, Public Gallery, London, UK
The Kingfisher's Wing, Curated by Tom Morton, GRIMM Gallery, New York, NY, USA
2021 Likkle Tings, Curated by Curtis Talwst Santiago, New York Studio School, New York, NY, USA
Fragments, ADZ Gallery, Lisbon, Portugal
The Thick Stream, CANADA, New York, NY, USA
2020 100 Drawings from Now, The Drawing Center, New York, NY, USA
Selected residencies
2023 Palazzo Monti, Brescia, Italy
2021 The Fores Project, London, UK
WT Foundation, Kyiv, Ukraine
Permanent collections
X Museum, Beijing, China
Sixi Museum, Nanjing, China
Palazzon Monti, Brescia, Italy
WT Foundation, Kyiv, Ukraine
Recharge Foundation, New York, USA