PHOTOGRAPHS: © AND COURTESY MARC QUINN STUDIO
Right: Quinn gathers
shells for his
Broken Sublime
sculptures. Below, a
reflective stainless
steel Frozen WaveQuinn’s boots, above,
used to kick The Toxic
Sublime paintings
(above, and before,
top right) into shape.
His Broken Sublime
sea-shell sculptures,
left, at Somerset HouseSelf, Siren (the 18kt gold statue of Kate Moss
in a contorted yoga pose) and Alison Lapper
Pregnant. And, indeed, it seems he will always
be known as a YBA – Young British Artist – the
name coined for a group of provocative artists
including Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin,
who were collected by Charles Saatchi and
dominated the art scene in the 1990s. Quinn
thinks the name has stuck because it’s easy
journalism, but adds that “it’s good to be called
young when you’re 51! I’m forever young”.
There hasn’t been such an explosive artistic
movement since. “It’s because you have to have
particular conditions for that to happen. There
have been interesting artists but there hasn’t
been a movement like that, although there
has in other countries. So it moves around.
We’ve had Chinese art and Indian art. At the
beginning of the last century it was Paris and
then New York with abstract expressionism
and pop, then Britain during YBA. You can’t
tell where the next place will be.”
Quinn isn’t someone who looks backwards.
“I’m a positive person,” he says. His favourite
piece of work is always the next one. He may
not be that young but he still has that youthful
energy and enthusiasm about his work. “I’m
riding the wave,” he says.
marcquinn.comBOAT LIFE
“I spend three months of the year looking out
at the ocean. It is the blood of the planet”