MARC QUINN (b. 1964)

Marc Quinn, a conceptual and political artist, was a member of the Young British Artists movement of the 1980's and 1990's with Damien Hirst.  Often considered the “brainy” YBA, Marc Quinn’s artwork explores the relationship between life and death, art and science, the human body and the perception of beauty. Quinn uses a broad range of materials to express these relationships in sculpture, painting, and drawing.

Quinn is most well known for his sculpture "Self."  As shocking as Hirst’s "Shark in a Tank," "Self" is self portrait created from 8 pints of the artist’s blood, removed from his body over time and then poured into a mold of his head.  Kept in a temperature controlled environment, his frozen blood head references identity, sexuality, beauty and the fragility of existence.