About

Quinn Standley (born in Phoenix, AZ; based in Richmond, VA) is an experimental visual artist. He works on long-term projects that begin with an archive of visual material—photographs, video footage, journal entries, and found objects collected over months to years—which he organizes, culls, and sequences into mixed-media installations and single-channel video works. His work weaves together seemingly disconnected subjects—from microscopic images, mushroom gorges, and insects, to gritty cityscapes, unopened letters found in abandoned houses, MRI scans of his own brain—into introspective narratives that examine his consciousness and subconsciousness. His recent work specifically reflects on his past experiences with psychosis. His artistic practice is a way of seeing and understanding the world, as opposed to merely looking at it. Quinn’s meticulously crafted, dark-romantic visuals invite viewers to encounter the mysteries that the world hides in plain sight and passageways into the altered states of the mind; he transforms the banal into the alien.

Quinn received his MFA with a concentration in Kinetic Imaging from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2025 and a BFA in Studio Art with a concentration in Photography, Video, and Imaging from the University of Arizona in 2022. He is currently a 2025–26 teaching fellow at Virginia Commonwealth University, where he teaches in the departments of Photography + Film and Kinetic Imaging.

Contact information

Email: standleyqr@vcu.edu

Education
MFA in Kinetic Imaging Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA — May 2025

BFA in Photography, Video, and Imaging University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ — Dec. 2022

Employment
Graduate Teaching Assistant, VCUarts Department of Kinetic Imaging (2024–2025)
Communications Assistant, VCUarts, Virginia Commonwealth University (2023–2024)

Awards and Honors
VCUarts Graduate Teaching Fellowship (2025/26)
VCUarts Spring Graduate Research Grant (2025)
Creative Achievement Award, University of Arizona School of Fine Arts (2022)
Andrew W. Eddowes Memorial Photography Scholarship (2022)
College of Fine Arts Dean’s List, University of Arizona (4 consecutive semesters)

Media / Collaborations
Video Trailer Editor, Videographer, Animator, and Director for The Will They Won’t by Ross Sutherland (Tribeca Film Festival 2025)

Exhibitions and Screenings
CRITICAL FLOW: Multimedia Performance, Wave Archive, Tucson, AZ (2025)
2025 VCUarts MFA Show, Institute for Contemporary Art, Richmond, VA
Whereabouts: MFA Candidacy Exhibition, Abandoned Dick’s Sporting Goods, Richmond, VA
Unsupported Format, Seipel Gallery, Richmond, VA
K is for Komputer, DePillars Gallery, Richmond, VA
Logic De/Compositional, Loft Cinema, Tucson, AZ
Under the Risk of the Real, Gallery Praxis, Tucson, AZ (2021, 2022)
Pick a Card, Subspace Gallery, Tucson, AZ (2022)
University of Arizona BFA Exhibition, Joseph Gross Gallery, Tucson, AZ (2022)
Exposé, Lionel Rombach Gallery, Tucson, AZ (2022)
Pinewood Studios Lift-Off Session, England (2021)