The Radar: Lily Bloom, Patrick Quinn and Cécile Lempert

In our monthly series, The Radar, we ask quick-fire questions to artists we’ve got our eye on. This roundup spotlights Lily Bloom, Patrick Quinn and Cécile Lempert

Patrick Quinn meme airbrush painting of a frog on a spoon
Patrick Quinn, frog in spoon, 2023, acrylic on canvas. Courtesy the artist

Lily Bloom

Lily Bloom found footage style photograph, 'Three Knocks and a Kiss'
Lily Bloom, Three Knocks & A Kiss pt. 2, 2024. Courtesy the artist

London-born artist Lily Bloom works across self-portraiture and sculpture to explore themes of souvenir, memory and horror. Bloom’s work is playful and humorous yet grounded in personal mythologies, pop culture and history. Her work offers viewers recognisable signifiers paired with a stark reminder of the universal pain of grief that inevitably lies ahead.

Age: 31

Location: London, UK

Last dream you had: The Joker (from the Arkham Asylum game) was sitting at the end of my bed wanting a chat

Favourite exhibition: Donna Dennis at O’Flaherty’s in NYC

Favourite object you own: My grandma’s 101 Dalmatians Rolly figurine

Favourite art-world Instagram account: @problemchild.advisory

Favourite movie: Almost Famous, 2000

Favourite artwork: The queue for ‘Skull Island: Reign of Kong’ at Universal Studios, Orlando

Loves: KUKA arm coasters, souvenir cups, a conversation with a beloved friend, haunted houses, Flickr

Hates: Standoffishness, bad manners, closed hearts

End-of-year goals: Think new. Don’t overcomplicate heaven

Patrick Quinn

Patrick Quinn toothpaste cat meme airbrush painting
Patrick Quinn, call the cops, 2023. Courtesy the artist

American artist Patrick Quinn crafts surreal, dreamlike scenes rooted in humour and a desire for earnestness. Quinn’s painted and airbrushed works often feature animals, food and objects he has a personal connection to. He describes his succession of paintings as memes in a different format.

Age: 36

Location: New York City

Last dream you had: World peace, a global reckoning, a new direction for humanity

Favourite exhibition: ‘The Woods by God’ at Earth Gallery

Favourite object you own: My bike

Favourite art-world Instagram account: Mine is definitely the only good one

Favourite movie: The 9th Movie by Joel Haver, it just came out on YouTube

Favourite artwork: Richard Prince’s joke paintings. Some people describe my paintings as funny, and it makes me wonder if the paintings we look at from long ago were originally meant to be funny and we just lost the jokes over time. Like when you hear a joke it’s different but if you were to write it down and read it every day it wouldn’t funny anymore

Loves: All the good things

Hates: All the bad things

End-of-year goals: To complete the ‘read 1000 books challenge’

Cécile Lempert

Cécile Lempert double portrait of a close-up of a face
Cécile Lempert, study of two eyes I, 2024. Photo: Mareike Tocha. Courtesy the artist

German artist Cécile Lempert works from photographic archives to create her paintings. Drawing from interpersonal relationships and family history, Lempert explores psychological states and questions of belonging. The often two-part compositions and narrow formats are reminiscent of film sequences and draw attention to intimate details: fleeting expressions, subtle hand gestures, the close-up of a face.

Age: 30

Location: Cologne, Germany

Last dream you had: I had one not so long ago about a city where the buildings communicated with each other via smoke or vapour

Favourite exhibition: Tacita Dean at Mudam Luxembourg in 2023 and Otto Dix at the Deichtorhallen Hamburg in 2024

Favourite object you own: A ribbon my son gave to me last weekend or a pearl necklace that belonged to my partner’s great-grandmother

Favourite art-world Instagram account: @grazyna.g_a

Favourite movie: The Winter Guest, 1997

Favourite artwork: My two favorites are Pisanello’s Saint George and the Princess fresco at Sant’Anastasia in Verona and a paper work from Paula Modersohn-Becker, Sitzendes Mädchen mit Profil nach links

Loves: Vegan Czech food, Mary Halverson, Josephine Foster and Schumann’s Lieder, when my partner reads to me (David Copperfield, Malina, A Series of Unfortunate Events), going hiking with Thilo S. and my children, drinking coffee with the Kaffeerunde at the PiKa in Cologne

Hates: Authoritarianism, para-religious superstitions, conservative misinformation

End-of-year goals: To play the first and second movements of the Old Suite by Max Reger together with my partner on the violin

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