Erin Quinn is a sculptor, printmaker, and intersectional environmentalist whose work engages climate grief, ecological memory, and material storytelling. Originally from Oklahoma and now based in Brooklyn, Quinn blends personal history with global urgency—using tactile, interactive forms to reflect on loss, complicity, and the delicate boundaries between play and collapse.
A 2023 graduate of Oklahoma State University and recipient of the 2024 Momentum Grant from the Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition, Quinn has exhibited nationally in Maryland, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Washington. Their artistic path reflects a deepening awareness of both land and lineage. From early experiences on a family farm to environmental advocacy and studio residencies, Quinn’s work emerges from the lived tension between wonder and unraveling.
Currently Exhibiting in: Bushwick, Brooklyn
Web: erinowen.art
Instagram: @erinquinn.art
LinkedIn: Erin Quinn
Quinn’s practice is rooted in questions rather than answers: What do we do with grief we can’t undo? How do we remember the vanishing? And what happens when childhood awe collides with adult awareness? Their sculptural works are both poetic and participatory—calling viewers to become physically present in the stakes they might otherwise ignore.
Featured Artwork at Bushwick Gallery
Dreams of Glacier National Park
Year of Creation: 2023
Medium: Plexiglass, steel, wood, recycled glass, crude oil
Dimensions: 3 ft x 3 ft x 5 ft
Edition Type: Unique, 1 of 1
Location: Brooklyn, NY
Price: $15,000
Description
Dreams of Glacier National Park reimagines a childhood game as a meditation on environmental loss. Modeled after Kerplunk, this sculptural work suspends recycled glass spheres—each filled with crude oil—on wooden rods within a towering plexiglass cylinder. Each removed rod mimics the removal of environmental supports: glacial loss, disappearing ecosystems, and irreversible ecological decisions.
Inspired by Quinn’s childhood dream to see Glacier National Park, this piece becomes both memorial and metaphor. The balance is fragile, the choices finite. The work doesn’t just depict collapse—it implicates us in it.
Formally striking and conceptually layered, Dreams of Glacier National Park is an urgent invitation to witness, to mourn, and to reflect on what might still be preserved.
Exhibition Information
May 2025: Echoes of the Earth – Environmental Art
Curated by: Mekhi Deleon
Theme: Exploring the intersection of art and environmentalism, advocating for the planet through eco-art and other mediums.
Exhibition Dates: May 1 – May 8, 2025
Opening Reception: Thursday, May 1 | 6 PM – 8 PM
(for accessibility: full transcript below)
Step closer. Dreams of Glacier National Park is a suspended world—fragile, waiting, precarious.
Inside a towering plexiglass column, glass spheres—each filled with crude oil—balance on a web of wooden rods. It feels playful at first, recalling a childhood game. But linger, and the tension reveals itself: remove a rod, and the balance collapses.
Quinn reimagines the innocence of Kerplunk into an urgent meditation on environmental loss. Each orb is a vanished glacier, each rod a vanishing chance.
The spheres shimmer with pale greens and deep shadows, evoking ice and oil, beauty and destruction intertwined. Even untouched, the piece speaks of inevitability.
Dreams of Glacier National Park asks us to mourn what is slipping away—and to reckon with what fragile balances we still hold in our hands.