Marc Quinn first gained recognition in 1991 for his sculpture Self, a life-size cast of his head made from his own frozen blood. His work takes a wide range of forms including painting, drawing, photography and installation. Exploring issues around the human body, mortality, beauty, science and time, he often uses his own body to understand 'what it means to materially exist in the world'. Over the last few years he has delved deeper into enigmas of the human condition, questioning ideas of representation by using materials as traditional as marble to focus our attention on the bodies of others, and investigating the essence of life through the use of DNA and blood.
This exhibition brings together recent and new work, presented alongside drawings and photographs from the last ten years. Although he has become more ambitious in his use of technology – in Garden 2000 for example – Quinn continues to reference traditional art historical genres such as portraiture, landscape and still life.
