
'Wilder Shores of Desire'

'The Static of Nature'
Frozen Flower Sculptures
The artist Marc Quinn captures what he describes as:“The purest and most magical transformation of reality into art”.The frozen flower sculptures range from single works to large-scale installations such as 'The Engine of Evolution' and even a walk-through installation called 'Garden'.

Installation 'Garden' by Marc Quinn
How To 'Freeze' Flowers


Inside the 'Garden' thousands of different types of flowers bloom together
A Fantastical Landscape
In Garden, a large-scale installation by Quinn's hand, thousands of different types of flowers and plants were accumulated together in an architectural, walk-through structure. It is an installation of flowers in full bloom preserved in silicone. Since many of the species would never grow together or bloom at the same time, Garden represents a fantastical, almost mythical landscape. This installation also comments on the present-day driving force of human desire, attempting to shape and control the natural world around us.
Flowers in full bloom preserved in silicone
Hybrid Orchids
Taking this notion as a starting point, Quinn has also used the forms of orchids repeatedly in his sculptures, as readymade forms in large-scale bronze works, or collaged together in 'The Nurseries of El Dorado' series. In these small scale bronze sculptures, Quinn has created hybrid plants using elements taken from different plants. The artist has carefully pieced together these different elements and cast them in bronze.Marc Quinn About Garden
“For me, the Garden is about desire, it’s about all the flowers in the world all coming up at the same time, in the same place, an idea of a perfect paradise. You’ve got the metal refrigeration unit, the glass top, the tank, the silicone and then you’ve got this delicate image of the living bit, so in a traditional way it’s like body and soul. The idea of mechanics and something that’s alive inside it, even though the irony is that the flowers, in order to appear to live forever, are dead. Sculpture’s about transformation but what I like about the Garden is the flowers appear not to be transformed, however if you touch them you’d find that they’re as brittle as porcelain. I wanted it to be about the manipulation of nature as well. There is no such thing as nature anymore. It’s all culture now. Every landscape you see is a manipulated landscape, every flower has been genetically modified through breeding to be like it is, so these pictures are about The Garden being constructed, not grown, that’s one aspect.”

'Garden'
The Engine of Evolution
Following, Quinn created a naturalistic portrayal of a Phalaenopsis, a genus of the orchid family, paired with an Anthurium, a genus of the arum family. This monumental work is rendered in great detail, with fine, papery petals. Each flower is distinguished with their unique veins, defy the properties of the bronze medium in which they were cast to appear almost weightless and ethereal.
The Concept of Ideal Beauty
Every element of the sculpture aspires to the perfection of reality and the accurate rendition of natural beauty. The 'Engine of Evolution' also belongs to the series of sculptures and paintings such as 'Garden' and 'The Static of Nature'. Through this series, Quinn has explored the concept of ideal beauty achieved, especially, through genetic modification.