The World’s Beginning

Marc Quinn
The World’s Beginning
2010
Oil on canvas
168.5 x 261.5 cm

Marc Quinn is an artist known from the art movement YBAs (Young British Artists), which influenced the British art scene in the 1990s, as well as governmental policies regarding art and culture. Quinn was interested in scientific topics from a young age, due to influence from his father who was a physician, that are clearly reflected in his works. His work explores contemporary humanism from various perspectives, such as the human body, genomics and environment.

This work, “The World’s Beginning” (2010), is part of the “Flower Paintings” series. This painting series is a series of drawings made up of flowers and fruit bought in local flower shops in a hyperrealism style. The flowers and fruit that blossom in different seasons, and grow in different regions, exist simultaneously on one canvas, representing the endless desire of humans trying to control nature., It is clear that Quinn is addressing the relation between human and nature as the title of this series was decided on after environmental issues were highlighted on a global scale. The work includes a possibility of the future brought by the desire to create artificially distorted beauty or to transform the shape of death.

(Commentary: Shin Sumimoto / Translation: Emma Tsuji Harrison)