MARC QUINN
On 30 October 2009 Mary Boone Gallery will open at its Fifth Avenue location “Iris”, an exhibition of new paintings by MARC QUINN.
These round canvases each depict in gigantic scale the iris of a human eye – turbulently streaked and spotted, suffused with bright colors, and highly individual. Although photorealistic, the disembodied images might equally serve as renditions of whirling interstellar space.
Recurring themes in Quinn’s work – the body and identity, flesh and the spirit – are examined at their foundation: since pre-Biblical times the eyes have been likened to representations of the soul. Quinn considers the eyes to be “doors of perception… the link between us and the world”. As in the seminal work “Self” from 1991 – in which the Artist’s head was cast in his own blood and frozen – these irises show Quinn’s fascination with bringing the inside out; “they are like a leakage of the vivid interior world of the body to the monochrome world of the skin”.
The exhibition, at 745 Fifth Avenue, will run through 19 December 2009. A fully illustrated catalogue including the text of a conversation with Marc Quinn will be available at the Gallery. Please contact Ron Warren at the Gallery for further assistance, or visit our website: www.maryboonegallery.com.
