MARC QUINN
The Sunny Side of the Moon (In The Night
Garden), 2010
Oil on canvas
Deep red orchids, intense green leaves
underpinned by yellow at bottom left and magenta petals at bottom and top right, against a black background.
βQuinn became enamoured with Dutch flower painting when he studied art history in the 80s. These painters were obliged to wait for each flower to come into season before painting it into their compositions, culminating in images of ideal but impossible bouquets. Walking through New Covent Garden Flower Market in 2005, Quinn observed these different species, imagining the vast map of modern commerce that had produced such an aberration of nature's seasonal and geographic patterns.
This work belongs to Quinn's series of flower paintings that subvert one of the oldest forms of picture making: the still-life. To create these hyper-realist paintings, Quinn assembles and photographs a still-life arrangement in his studio, using flowers and fruit bought in London on a particular day, depicting a frozen moment of 'unnatural' time. For this work, the colours of the photograph have been reversed before being painted in oil, creating a more surreal, dreamlike painting. Connected to the unconscious, its beauty belies a sinister subtext: the relentless human desire to control nature.β
So dramatic by Marc Quinn:
The Sunny Side of the Moon (In The Night Garden), 2010
Oil on canvas
Courtesy of the Artist
For context and technique, see alt. txt.
#FlowersExhibition #SaatchiGallery 7/