Marc Quinn - Burning Desire, 2011
"I think that nature is beautiful and disturbing... Nature is a kind of relentless machine that consumes... there's something kind of dangerous about nature as well as beautiful." Marc Quinn.
A rare sunny day earlier this year saw me undertaking a long overdue return to Kew Gardens to catch this retrospective of the sculptural works of artist Marc Quinn. I've featured Quinn's work on this blog previously (here). Quinn in my view was always one of the most most interesting of that generation of Young British Artists who came to prominence in the 90s in the exhibition Sensation at the Royal Academy of Arts which featured works from the personal collection of Charles Saatchi. Quinn's Self, a self-portrait consisting of frozen pints of his own blood, is one one of the most fascinating of artworks and captured my attention and imagination with its shock value. I thought it was an absolutely brilliant, original conceit, and I have been an enthusiast of his work ever since. This latest show of Quinn's works contains a new version of Self entitled The Origin of the Species, created from coconut milk rather than blood and resembles a traditional death mask usually cast from wax or plaster. Quinn thought the use of coconut milk would be more fitting for this retrospective to reflect the exhibitions setting in nature. Another stand out sculpture here at Kew is the stunning Blood Flowers, an arrangement of Calla Lilly's cast from animal blood in the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art. It is a piece that will not be to everybody's taste, and is definitely not for the faint hearted, but is so hauntingly beautiful as to be mesmeric. The gallery contains new and existing works including drawings, sculptures and paintings. Other stand outs on the trail around the lovely gardens of Kew include the large, vibrant Burning Desire, a huge red orchid nestled under the shadow of the Great Pagoda. There are further huge mirrored orchids from the artists Light into Life series also dotted around the sculpture trail. Along the trail are also other pieces with mirrored surfaces from Quinn's Our Botanic Selves series. These pieces were inspired by Kew's Herbarium specimens and represents a plant that whilst toxic to humans if ingested, have been found by scientists to be effective in the treatment of certain diseases and cancers. They play great tricks with the eye, shapeshifting as they reflect and then appear and disappear into the landscape appearing to camouflage themselves as if they had cloaking abilities. Quinn's massive bronze bonsai trees titled Held by Desire located in the Temperate House were another series which I thought not only impressive in scale but also detail as each individual leaf was presented just like the actual versions of the real things which sat alongside, dwarfed in the same space. Lastly on my walk around the gardens I encountered appropriately enough outside the Palm House three huge sculptures of palms based on the Sabai and Bismarckia palms contained within the Palm House. Quinn's sculptures blended into Kew's landscape perfectly and also complemented the natural flora which inhabited the scenery. An added bonus of my visit was getting to see the artist Marc Quinn himself outside of the Palm House who was there with his son photographing his work for posterity.
Marc Quinn: Light Into Life
until 29th September
Kew Gardens
Richmond
London
