Reflecting Nature: Marc Quinn at Kew Gardens
The unlimited potential of Bonsai is explored in the sculptor's new outdoor installations...
By
Rhea Mathur
June 12, 2024
Through Kew Gardens’ Victoria Gate, past the Waterlily House and opposite the Palm House, sits a beautiful stainless steel sculpture of an orchid made by Marc Quinn. Designed specifically for the botanical garden in 2024, the mesmerising sculpture borrows inspiration from the Garden’s permanent collection of orchids, representing a timeless and eternal quality with the large, hard, stainless steel structure resting next to patches of fleeting roses. The facade, however strong and timeless, in its bent corners and folded edges mimics the curvature of the petals in an orchid. Each side of the Light into Life (The Evolution of Forms) reflects a different colour: roses, green grass and the light blue (or very often cloudy) sky. The stainless steel sculpture is silver, strong and spellbinding while at the same time vibrant, full of colours and soft in its appearance. Marc Quinn’s Light into Life at Kew Gardens is an enchanting exhibition that subtly discusses our everyday impact on nature and urges visitors to preserve it.
Until the end of September, seventeen of Quinn’s sculptures will be available for visitors to view. A map, given upon entry, points out the location of each of them, dispersed like seeds all across the Gardens that span Kew and Richmond. Each artwork has been supplied with a conspicuous signpost naming it and providing a small description of the work. However, each installation does much more than simply and peacefully co-exist with their natural surroundings; they were designed by Quinn specifically for the spaces they are in. Quinn is not only a patron of the Gardens but, through his work, also aims to discuss our constantly evolving, complex relationship with nature. His pieces stand amongst nature, almost acting as mirrors, allowing visitors to reflect on their relationship with the recreated flower, the surrounding plants and trees, and nature as a whole.
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In front of the Palm House stand three larger-than-life palm leaves designed by Quinn. Reflecting the enormous glass house completed in 1848, the leaves draw on Kew’s preservation of endangered and extinct tropical and subtropical plants. With the Raffia Palm also known to have the largest leaves in the world, this display brings attention to the span of these leaves and focuses attention on this important plant. Similarly, Quinn’s stainless steel orchid reflects the species of orchids that live in the Princess of Wales Conservatory only a short walk from the Palm House. The Garden also celebrates its Orchid Festival held earlier this year, the focus of which was on Madagascar, inviting visitors to the Conservatory to look at Malagasy orchids as well as the enchanting biodiversity that grows in the country.
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Taking the Cherry Walk from the Palm House leads visitors straight down to the Temperate House, the world’s largest Victorian glasshouse which hosts 1,200 species from across Asia, Australasia, the Americas, and Africa. Inside are six sculptures by Quinn, as well as four standing in the gardens just outside. Marked fifteen on the blue map is Held by Desire (The Dimensions of Freedom), 2017-2018, a giant bonsai tree made from bronze, on loan from Germany’s Würth Collection for this exhibition, and one of four bronze bonsai trees in the Temperate House Octagons. A plant known to be short and compact, Quinn’s Bonsais brings attention to how the plants are usually pruned to maintain their small size. He illustrates sets of two untempered by human desire and instead grow to monumental heights, reaching their full potential.
For art lovers, the exhibition continues in the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art. This gallery is designed to help visitors further understand Quinn’s work over the years and take us through his drawings, sculptures and paintings. The Gallery uses this opportunity to highlight the whimsy within Quinn’s work as this indoor exhibition begins with his series NATURENOW. Shot on his iPhone, this series uses the phone screen as a medium to discuss the digital in our new relationship with nature.
Towards the end of the gallery, Quinn also features his frozen works. In the work titled Human Nature, designed in 2024 for this exhibition, he places Calla Lillies in the refrigeration unit set at a negative twenty-two degrees Celsius. This work also includes the use of commercially available and dried animal blood which is used as a fertiliser in this work. Quinn comments on human intervention in the lifecycles of nature beings through this work, keeping these flowers frozen in time, and addressing our over-commercialised and industrial relationship with everything around mankind.
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Quinn’s collaboration with Kew Gardens is a reflection of our new relationship with nature. He focuses on the new interference of technology in all aspects of our world and the captivity of the natural life cycles of plants, trees and even animals. At the same time, this exhibition is a silent reflection, that allows the visitor to use, understand and harness the potential of his works on their own. Without any audio guides and long descriptions, Quinn’s installation is a reminder that life does not merely represent humans. By bringing his work to Kew, he represents their long and important journey in collecting and facilitating nature.
Marc Quinn: Light into Life is showing at Kew Gardens until 29th September.
Through Kew Gardens’ Victoria Gate, past the Waterlily House and opposite the Palm House, sits a beautiful stainless steel sculpture of an orchid made by Marc Quinn. Designed specifically for the botanical garden in 2024, the mesmerising sculpture borrows inspiration from the Garden’s permanent collection of orchids, representing a timeless and eternal quality with the large, hard, stainless steel structure resting next to patches of fleeting roses. The facade, however strong and timeless, in its bent corners and folded edges mimics the curvature of the petals in an orchid. Each side of the Light into Life (The Evolution of Forms) reflects a different colour: roses, green grass and the light blue (or very often cloudy) sky. The stainless steel sculpture is silver, strong and spellbinding while at the same time vibrant, full of colours and soft in its appearance. Marc Quinn’s Light into Life at Kew Gardens is an enchanting exhibition that subtly discusses our everyday impact on nature and urges visitors to preserve it.
Until the end of September, seventeen of Quinn’s sculptures will be available for visitors to view. A map, given upon entry, points out the location of each of them, dispersed like seeds all across the Gardens that span Kew and Richmond. Each artwork has been supplied with a conspicuous signpost naming it and providing a small description of the work. However, each installation does much more than simply and peacefully co-exist with their natural surroundings; they were designed by Quinn specifically for the spaces they are in. Quinn is not only a patron of the Gardens but, through his work, also aims to discuss our constantly evolving, complex relationship with nature. His pieces stand amongst nature, almost acting as mirrors, allowing visitors to reflect on their relationship with the recreated flower, the surrounding plants and trees, and nature as a whole.
In front of the Palm House stand three larger-than-life palm leaves designed by Quinn. Reflecting the enormous glass house completed in 1848, the leaves draw on Kew’s preservation of endangered and extinct tropical and subtropical plants. With the Raffia Palm also known to have the largest leaves in the world, this display brings attention to the span of these leaves and focuses attention on this important plant. Similarly, Quinn’s stainless steel orchid reflects the species of orchids that live in the Princess of Wales Conservatory only a short walk from the Palm House. The Garden also celebrates its Orchid Festival held earlier this year, the focus of which was on Madagascar, inviting visitors to the Conservatory to look at Malagasy orchids as well as the enchanting biodiversity that grows in the country.
Taking the Cherry Walk from the Palm House leads visitors straight down to the Temperate House, the world’s largest Victorian glasshouse which hosts 1,200 species from across Asia, Australasia, the Americas, and Africa. Inside are six sculptures by Quinn, as well as four standing in the gardens just outside. Marked fifteen on the blue map is Held by Desire (The Dimensions of Freedom), 2017-2018, a giant bonsai tree made from bronze, on loan from Germany’s Würth Collection for this exhibition, and one of four bronze bonsai trees in the Temperate House Octagons. A plant known to be short and compact, Quinn’s Bonsais brings attention to how the plants are usually pruned to maintain their small size. He illustrates sets of two untempered by human desire and instead grow to monumental heights, reaching their full potential.
For art lovers, the exhibition continues in the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art. This gallery is designed to help visitors further understand Quinn’s work over the years and take us through his drawings, sculptures and paintings. The Gallery uses this opportunity to highlight the whimsy within Quinn’s work as this indoor exhibition begins with his series NATURENOW. Shot on his iPhone, this series uses the phone screen as a medium to discuss the digital in our new relationship with nature.
Towards the end of the gallery, Quinn also features his frozen works. In the work titled Human Nature, designed in 2024 for this exhibition, he places Calla Lillies in the refrigeration unit set at a negative twenty-two degrees Celsius. This work also includes the use of commercially available and dried animal blood which is used as a fertiliser in this work. Quinn comments on human intervention in the lifecycles of nature beings through this work, keeping these flowers frozen in time, and addressing our over-commercialised and industrial relationship with everything around mankind.
Quinn’s collaboration with Kew Gardens is a reflection of our new relationship with nature. He focuses on the new interference of technology in all aspects of our world and the captivity of the natural life cycles of plants, trees and even animals. At the same time, this exhibition is a silent reflection, that allows the visitor to use, understand and harness the potential of his works on their own. Without any audio guides and long descriptions, Quinn’s installation is a reminder that life does not merely represent humans. By bringing his work to Kew, he represents their long and important journey in collecting and facilitating nature.
Marc Quinn: Light into Life is showing at Kew Gardens until 29th September.
Through Kew Gardens’ Victoria Gate, past the Waterlily House and opposite the Palm House, sits a beautiful stainless steel sculpture of an orchid made by Marc Quinn. Designed specifically for the botanical garden in 2024, the mesmerising sculpture borrows inspiration from the Garden’s permanent collection of orchids, representing a timeless and eternal quality with the large, hard, stainless steel structure resting next to patches of fleeting roses. The facade, however strong and timeless, in its bent corners and folded edges mimics the curvature of the petals in an orchid. Each side of the Light into Life (The Evolution of Forms) reflects a different colour: roses, green grass and the light blue (or very often cloudy) sky. The stainless steel sculpture is silver, strong and spellbinding while at the same time vibrant, full of colours and soft in its appearance. Marc Quinn’s Light into Life at Kew Gardens is an enchanting exhibition that subtly discusses our everyday impact on nature and urges visitors to preserve it.
Until the end of September, seventeen of Quinn’s sculptures will be available for visitors to view. A map, given upon entry, points out the location of each of them, dispersed like seeds all across the Gardens that span Kew and Richmond. Each artwork has been supplied with a conspicuous signpost naming it and providing a small description of the work. However, each installation does much more than simply and peacefully co-exist with their natural surroundings; they were designed by Quinn specifically for the spaces they are in. Quinn is not only a patron of the Gardens but, through his work, also aims to discuss our constantly evolving, complex relationship with nature. His pieces stand amongst nature, almost acting as mirrors, allowing visitors to reflect on their relationship with the recreated flower, the surrounding plants and trees, and nature as a whole.
In front of the Palm House stand three larger-than-life palm leaves designed by Quinn. Reflecting the enormous glass house completed in 1848, the leaves draw on Kew’s preservation of endangered and extinct tropical and subtropical plants. With the Raffia Palm also known to have the largest leaves in the world, this display brings attention to the span of these leaves and focuses attention on this important plant. Similarly, Quinn’s stainless steel orchid reflects the species of orchids that live in the Princess of Wales Conservatory only a short walk from the Palm House. The Garden also celebrates its Orchid Festival held earlier this year, the focus of which was on Madagascar, inviting visitors to the Conservatory to look at Malagasy orchids as well as the enchanting biodiversity that grows in the country.
Taking the Cherry Walk from the Palm House leads visitors straight down to the Temperate House, the world’s largest Victorian glasshouse which hosts 1,200 species from across Asia, Australasia, the Americas, and Africa. Inside are six sculptures by Quinn, as well as four standing in the gardens just outside. Marked fifteen on the blue map is Held by Desire (The Dimensions of Freedom), 2017-2018, a giant bonsai tree made from bronze, on loan from Germany’s Würth Collection for this exhibition, and one of four bronze bonsai trees in the Temperate House Octagons. A plant known to be short and compact, Quinn’s Bonsais brings attention to how the plants are usually pruned to maintain their small size. He illustrates sets of two untempered by human desire and instead grow to monumental heights, reaching their full potential.
For art lovers, the exhibition continues in the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art. This gallery is designed to help visitors further understand Quinn’s work over the years and take us through his drawings, sculptures and paintings. The Gallery uses this opportunity to highlight the whimsy within Quinn’s work as this indoor exhibition begins with his series NATURENOW. Shot on his iPhone, this series uses the phone screen as a medium to discuss the digital in our new relationship with nature.
Towards the end of the gallery, Quinn also features his frozen works. In the work titled Human Nature, designed in 2024 for this exhibition, he places Calla Lillies in the refrigeration unit set at a negative twenty-two degrees Celsius. This work also includes the use of commercially available and dried animal blood which is used as a fertiliser in this work. Quinn comments on human intervention in the lifecycles of nature beings through this work, keeping these flowers frozen in time, and addressing our over-commercialised and industrial relationship with everything around mankind.
Quinn’s collaboration with Kew Gardens is a reflection of our new relationship with nature. He focuses on the new interference of technology in all aspects of our world and the captivity of the natural life cycles of plants, trees and even animals. At the same time, this exhibition is a silent reflection, that allows the visitor to use, understand and harness the potential of his works on their own. Without any audio guides and long descriptions, Quinn’s installation is a reminder that life does not merely represent humans. By bringing his work to Kew, he represents their long and important journey in collecting and facilitating nature.
Marc Quinn: Light into Life is showing at Kew Gardens until 29th September.
Through Kew Gardens’ Victoria Gate, past the Waterlily House and opposite the Palm House, sits a beautiful stainless steel sculpture of an orchid made by Marc Quinn. Designed specifically for the botanical garden in 2024, the mesmerising sculpture borrows inspiration from the Garden’s permanent collection of orchids, representing a timeless and eternal quality with the large, hard, stainless steel structure resting next to patches of fleeting roses. The facade, however strong and timeless, in its bent corners and folded edges mimics the curvature of the petals in an orchid. Each side of the Light into Life (The Evolution of Forms) reflects a different colour: roses, green grass and the light blue (or very often cloudy) sky. The stainless steel sculpture is silver, strong and spellbinding while at the same time vibrant, full of colours and soft in its appearance. Marc Quinn’s Light into Life at Kew Gardens is an enchanting exhibition that subtly discusses our everyday impact on nature and urges visitors to preserve it.
Until the end of September, seventeen of Quinn’s sculptures will be available for visitors to view. A map, given upon entry, points out the location of each of them, dispersed like seeds all across the Gardens that span Kew and Richmond. Each artwork has been supplied with a conspicuous signpost naming it and providing a small description of the work. However, each installation does much more than simply and peacefully co-exist with their natural surroundings; they were designed by Quinn specifically for the spaces they are in. Quinn is not only a patron of the Gardens but, through his work, also aims to discuss our constantly evolving, complex relationship with nature. His pieces stand amongst nature, almost acting as mirrors, allowing visitors to reflect on their relationship with the recreated flower, the surrounding plants and trees, and nature as a whole.
In front of the Palm House stand three larger-than-life palm leaves designed by Quinn. Reflecting the enormous glass house completed in 1848, the leaves draw on Kew’s preservation of endangered and extinct tropical and subtropical plants. With the Raffia Palm also known to have the largest leaves in the world, this display brings attention to the span of these leaves and focuses attention on this important plant. Similarly, Quinn’s stainless steel orchid reflects the species of orchids that live in the Princess of Wales Conservatory only a short walk from the Palm House. The Garden also celebrates its Orchid Festival held earlier this year, the focus of which was on Madagascar, inviting visitors to the Conservatory to look at Malagasy orchids as well as the enchanting biodiversity that grows in the country.
Taking the Cherry Walk from the Palm House leads visitors straight down to the Temperate House, the world’s largest Victorian glasshouse which hosts 1,200 species from across Asia, Australasia, the Americas, and Africa. Inside are six sculptures by Quinn, as well as four standing in the gardens just outside. Marked fifteen on the blue map is Held by Desire (The Dimensions of Freedom), 2017-2018, a giant bonsai tree made from bronze, on loan from Germany’s Würth Collection for this exhibition, and one of four bronze bonsai trees in the Temperate House Octagons. A plant known to be short and compact, Quinn’s Bonsais brings attention to how the plants are usually pruned to maintain their small size. He illustrates sets of two untempered by human desire and instead grow to monumental heights, reaching their full potential.
For art lovers, the exhibition continues in the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art. This gallery is designed to help visitors further understand Quinn’s work over the years and take us through his drawings, sculptures and paintings. The Gallery uses this opportunity to highlight the whimsy within Quinn’s work as this indoor exhibition begins with his series NATURENOW. Shot on his iPhone, this series uses the phone screen as a medium to discuss the digital in our new relationship with nature.
Towards the end of the gallery, Quinn also features his frozen works. In the work titled Human Nature, designed in 2024 for this exhibition, he places Calla Lillies in the refrigeration unit set at a negative twenty-two degrees Celsius. This work also includes the use of commercially available and dried animal blood which is used as a fertiliser in this work. Quinn comments on human intervention in the lifecycles of nature beings through this work, keeping these flowers frozen in time, and addressing our over-commercialised and industrial relationship with everything around mankind.
Quinn’s collaboration with Kew Gardens is a reflection of our new relationship with nature. He focuses on the new interference of technology in all aspects of our world and the captivity of the natural life cycles of plants, trees and even animals. At the same time, this exhibition is a silent reflection, that allows the visitor to use, understand and harness the potential of his works on their own. Without any audio guides and long descriptions, Quinn’s installation is a reminder that life does not merely represent humans. By bringing his work to Kew, he represents their long and important journey in collecting and facilitating nature.
Marc Quinn: Light into Life is showing at Kew Gardens until 29th September.
Through Kew Gardens’ Victoria Gate, past the Waterlily House and opposite the Palm House, sits a beautiful stainless steel sculpture of an orchid made by Marc Quinn. Designed specifically for the botanical garden in 2024, the mesmerising sculpture borrows inspiration from the Garden’s permanent collection of orchids, representing a timeless and eternal quality with the large, hard, stainless steel structure resting next to patches of fleeting roses. The facade, however strong and timeless, in its bent corners and folded edges mimics the curvature of the petals in an orchid. Each side of the Light into Life (The Evolution of Forms) reflects a different colour: roses, green grass and the light blue (or very often cloudy) sky. The stainless steel sculpture is silver, strong and spellbinding while at the same time vibrant, full of colours and soft in its appearance. Marc Quinn’s Light into Life at Kew Gardens is an enchanting exhibition that subtly discusses our everyday impact on nature and urges visitors to preserve it.
Until the end of September, seventeen of Quinn’s sculptures will be available for visitors to view. A map, given upon entry, points out the location of each of them, dispersed like seeds all across the Gardens that span Kew and Richmond. Each artwork has been supplied with a conspicuous signpost naming it and providing a small description of the work. However, each installation does much more than simply and peacefully co-exist with their natural surroundings; they were designed by Quinn specifically for the spaces they are in. Quinn is not only a patron of the Gardens but, through his work, also aims to discuss our constantly evolving, complex relationship with nature. His pieces stand amongst nature, almost acting as mirrors, allowing visitors to reflect on their relationship with the recreated flower, the surrounding plants and trees, and nature as a whole.
In front of the Palm House stand three larger-than-life palm leaves designed by Quinn. Reflecting the enormous glass house completed in 1848, the leaves draw on Kew’s preservation of endangered and extinct tropical and subtropical plants. With the Raffia Palm also known to have the largest leaves in the world, this display brings attention to the span of these leaves and focuses attention on this important plant. Similarly, Quinn’s stainless steel orchid reflects the species of orchids that live in the Princess of Wales Conservatory only a short walk from the Palm House. The Garden also celebrates its Orchid Festival held earlier this year, the focus of which was on Madagascar, inviting visitors to the Conservatory to look at Malagasy orchids as well as the enchanting biodiversity that grows in the country.
Taking the Cherry Walk from the Palm House leads visitors straight down to the Temperate House, the world’s largest Victorian glasshouse which hosts 1,200 species from across Asia, Australasia, the Americas, and Africa. Inside are six sculptures by Quinn, as well as four standing in the gardens just outside. Marked fifteen on the blue map is Held by Desire (The Dimensions of Freedom), 2017-2018, a giant bonsai tree made from bronze, on loan from Germany’s Würth Collection for this exhibition, and one of four bronze bonsai trees in the Temperate House Octagons. A plant known to be short and compact, Quinn’s Bonsais brings attention to how the plants are usually pruned to maintain their small size. He illustrates sets of two untempered by human desire and instead grow to monumental heights, reaching their full potential.
For art lovers, the exhibition continues in the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art. This gallery is designed to help visitors further understand Quinn’s work over the years and take us through his drawings, sculptures and paintings. The Gallery uses this opportunity to highlight the whimsy within Quinn’s work as this indoor exhibition begins with his series NATURENOW. Shot on his iPhone, this series uses the phone screen as a medium to discuss the digital in our new relationship with nature.
Towards the end of the gallery, Quinn also features his frozen works. In the work titled Human Nature, designed in 2024 for this exhibition, he places Calla Lillies in the refrigeration unit set at a negative twenty-two degrees Celsius. This work also includes the use of commercially available and dried animal blood which is used as a fertiliser in this work. Quinn comments on human intervention in the lifecycles of nature beings through this work, keeping these flowers frozen in time, and addressing our over-commercialised and industrial relationship with everything around mankind.
Quinn’s collaboration with Kew Gardens is a reflection of our new relationship with nature. He focuses on the new interference of technology in all aspects of our world and the captivity of the natural life cycles of plants, trees and even animals. At the same time, this exhibition is a silent reflection, that allows the visitor to use, understand and harness the potential of his works on their own. Without any audio guides and long descriptions, Quinn’s installation is a reminder that life does not merely represent humans. By bringing his work to Kew, he represents their long and important journey in collecting and facilitating nature.
Marc Quinn: Light into Life is showing at Kew Gardens until 29th September.
Through Kew Gardens’ Victoria Gate, past the Waterlily House and opposite the Palm House, sits a beautiful stainless steel sculpture of an orchid made by Marc Quinn. Designed specifically for the botanical garden in 2024, the mesmerising sculpture borrows inspiration from the Garden’s permanent collection of orchids, representing a timeless and eternal quality with the large, hard, stainless steel structure resting next to patches of fleeting roses. The facade, however strong and timeless, in its bent corners and folded edges mimics the curvature of the petals in an orchid. Each side of the Light into Life (The Evolution of Forms) reflects a different colour: roses, green grass and the light blue (or very often cloudy) sky. The stainless steel sculpture is silver, strong and spellbinding while at the same time vibrant, full of colours and soft in its appearance. Marc Quinn’s Light into Life at Kew Gardens is an enchanting exhibition that subtly discusses our everyday impact on nature and urges visitors to preserve it.
Until the end of September, seventeen of Quinn’s sculptures will be available for visitors to view. A map, given upon entry, points out the location of each of them, dispersed like seeds all across the Gardens that span Kew and Richmond. Each artwork has been supplied with a conspicuous signpost naming it and providing a small description of the work. However, each installation does much more than simply and peacefully co-exist with their natural surroundings; they were designed by Quinn specifically for the spaces they are in. Quinn is not only a patron of the Gardens but, through his work, also aims to discuss our constantly evolving, complex relationship with nature. His pieces stand amongst nature, almost acting as mirrors, allowing visitors to reflect on their relationship with the recreated flower, the surrounding plants and trees, and nature as a whole.
In front of the Palm House stand three larger-than-life palm leaves designed by Quinn. Reflecting the enormous glass house completed in 1848, the leaves draw on Kew’s preservation of endangered and extinct tropical and subtropical plants. With the Raffia Palm also known to have the largest leaves in the world, this display brings attention to the span of these leaves and focuses attention on this important plant. Similarly, Quinn’s stainless steel orchid reflects the species of orchids that live in the Princess of Wales Conservatory only a short walk from the Palm House. The Garden also celebrates its Orchid Festival held earlier this year, the focus of which was on Madagascar, inviting visitors to the Conservatory to look at Malagasy orchids as well as the enchanting biodiversity that grows in the country.
Taking the Cherry Walk from the Palm House leads visitors straight down to the Temperate House, the world’s largest Victorian glasshouse which hosts 1,200 species from across Asia, Australasia, the Americas, and Africa. Inside are six sculptures by Quinn, as well as four standing in the gardens just outside. Marked fifteen on the blue map is Held by Desire (The Dimensions of Freedom), 2017-2018, a giant bonsai tree made from bronze, on loan from Germany’s Würth Collection for this exhibition, and one of four bronze bonsai trees in the Temperate House Octagons. A plant known to be short and compact, Quinn’s Bonsais brings attention to how the plants are usually pruned to maintain their small size. He illustrates sets of two untempered by human desire and instead grow to monumental heights, reaching their full potential.
For art lovers, the exhibition continues in the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art. This gallery is designed to help visitors further understand Quinn’s work over the years and take us through his drawings, sculptures and paintings. The Gallery uses this opportunity to highlight the whimsy within Quinn’s work as this indoor exhibition begins with his series NATURENOW. Shot on his iPhone, this series uses the phone screen as a medium to discuss the digital in our new relationship with nature.
Towards the end of the gallery, Quinn also features his frozen works. In the work titled Human Nature, designed in 2024 for this exhibition, he places Calla Lillies in the refrigeration unit set at a negative twenty-two degrees Celsius. This work also includes the use of commercially available and dried animal blood which is used as a fertiliser in this work. Quinn comments on human intervention in the lifecycles of nature beings through this work, keeping these flowers frozen in time, and addressing our over-commercialised and industrial relationship with everything around mankind.
Quinn’s collaboration with Kew Gardens is a reflection of our new relationship with nature. He focuses on the new interference of technology in all aspects of our world and the captivity of the natural life cycles of plants, trees and even animals. At the same time, this exhibition is a silent reflection, that allows the visitor to use, understand and harness the potential of his works on their own. Without any audio guides and long descriptions, Quinn’s installation is a reminder that life does not merely represent humans. By bringing his work to Kew, he represents their long and important journey in collecting and facilitating nature.
Marc Quinn: Light into Life is showing at Kew Gardens until 29th September.
Through Kew Gardens’ Victoria Gate, past the Waterlily House and opposite the Palm House, sits a beautiful stainless steel sculpture of an orchid made by Marc Quinn. Designed specifically for the botanical garden in 2024, the mesmerising sculpture borrows inspiration from the Garden’s permanent collection of orchids, representing a timeless and eternal quality with the large, hard, stainless steel structure resting next to patches of fleeting roses. The facade, however strong and timeless, in its bent corners and folded edges mimics the curvature of the petals in an orchid. Each side of the Light into Life (The Evolution of Forms) reflects a different colour: roses, green grass and the light blue (or very often cloudy) sky. The stainless steel sculpture is silver, strong and spellbinding while at the same time vibrant, full of colours and soft in its appearance. Marc Quinn’s Light into Life at Kew Gardens is an enchanting exhibition that subtly discusses our everyday impact on nature and urges visitors to preserve it.
Until the end of September, seventeen of Quinn’s sculptures will be available for visitors to view. A map, given upon entry, points out the location of each of them, dispersed like seeds all across the Gardens that span Kew and Richmond. Each artwork has been supplied with a conspicuous signpost naming it and providing a small description of the work. However, each installation does much more than simply and peacefully co-exist with their natural surroundings; they were designed by Quinn specifically for the spaces they are in. Quinn is not only a patron of the Gardens but, through his work, also aims to discuss our constantly evolving, complex relationship with nature. His pieces stand amongst nature, almost acting as mirrors, allowing visitors to reflect on their relationship with the recreated flower, the surrounding plants and trees, and nature as a whole.
In front of the Palm House stand three larger-than-life palm leaves designed by Quinn. Reflecting the enormous glass house completed in 1848, the leaves draw on Kew’s preservation of endangered and extinct tropical and subtropical plants. With the Raffia Palm also known to have the largest leaves in the world, this display brings attention to the span of these leaves and focuses attention on this important plant. Similarly, Quinn’s stainless steel orchid reflects the species of orchids that live in the Princess of Wales Conservatory only a short walk from the Palm House. The Garden also celebrates its Orchid Festival held earlier this year, the focus of which was on Madagascar, inviting visitors to the Conservatory to look at Malagasy orchids as well as the enchanting biodiversity that grows in the country.
Taking the Cherry Walk from the Palm House leads visitors straight down to the Temperate House, the world’s largest Victorian glasshouse which hosts 1,200 species from across Asia, Australasia, the Americas, and Africa. Inside are six sculptures by Quinn, as well as four standing in the gardens just outside. Marked fifteen on the blue map is Held by Desire (The Dimensions of Freedom), 2017-2018, a giant bonsai tree made from bronze, on loan from Germany’s Würth Collection for this exhibition, and one of four bronze bonsai trees in the Temperate House Octagons. A plant known to be short and compact, Quinn’s Bonsais brings attention to how the plants are usually pruned to maintain their small size. He illustrates sets of two untempered by human desire and instead grow to monumental heights, reaching their full potential.
For art lovers, the exhibition continues in the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art. This gallery is designed to help visitors further understand Quinn’s work over the years and take us through his drawings, sculptures and paintings. The Gallery uses this opportunity to highlight the whimsy within Quinn’s work as this indoor exhibition begins with his series NATURENOW. Shot on his iPhone, this series uses the phone screen as a medium to discuss the digital in our new relationship with nature.
Towards the end of the gallery, Quinn also features his frozen works. In the work titled Human Nature, designed in 2024 for this exhibition, he places Calla Lillies in the refrigeration unit set at a negative twenty-two degrees Celsius. This work also includes the use of commercially available and dried animal blood which is used as a fertiliser in this work. Quinn comments on human intervention in the lifecycles of nature beings through this work, keeping these flowers frozen in time, and addressing our over-commercialised and industrial relationship with everything around mankind.
Quinn’s collaboration with Kew Gardens is a reflection of our new relationship with nature. He focuses on the new interference of technology in all aspects of our world and the captivity of the natural life cycles of plants, trees and even animals. At the same time, this exhibition is a silent reflection, that allows the visitor to use, understand and harness the potential of his works on their own. Without any audio guides and long descriptions, Quinn’s installation is a reminder that life does not merely represent humans. By bringing his work to Kew, he represents their long and important journey in collecting and facilitating nature.
Marc Quinn: Light into Life is showing at Kew Gardens until 29th September.
Through Kew Gardens’ Victoria Gate, past the Waterlily House and opposite the Palm House, sits a beautiful stainless steel sculpture of an orchid made by Marc Quinn. Designed specifically for the botanical garden in 2024, the mesmerising sculpture borrows inspiration from the Garden’s permanent collection of orchids, representing a timeless and eternal quality with the large, hard, stainless steel structure resting next to patches of fleeting roses. The facade, however strong and timeless, in its bent corners and folded edges mimics the curvature of the petals in an orchid. Each side of the Light into Life (The Evolution of Forms) reflects a different colour: roses, green grass and the light blue (or very often cloudy) sky. The stainless steel sculpture is silver, strong and spellbinding while at the same time vibrant, full of colours and soft in its appearance. Marc Quinn’s Light into Life at Kew Gardens is an enchanting exhibition that subtly discusses our everyday impact on nature and urges visitors to preserve it.
Until the end of September, seventeen of Quinn’s sculptures will be available for visitors to view. A map, given upon entry, points out the location of each of them, dispersed like seeds all across the Gardens that span Kew and Richmond. Each artwork has been supplied with a conspicuous signpost naming it and providing a small description of the work. However, each installation does much more than simply and peacefully co-exist with their natural surroundings; they were designed by Quinn specifically for the spaces they are in. Quinn is not only a patron of the Gardens but, through his work, also aims to discuss our constantly evolving, complex relationship with nature. His pieces stand amongst nature, almost acting as mirrors, allowing visitors to reflect on their relationship with the recreated flower, the surrounding plants and trees, and nature as a whole.
In front of the Palm House stand three larger-than-life palm leaves designed by Quinn. Reflecting the enormous glass house completed in 1848, the leaves draw on Kew’s preservation of endangered and extinct tropical and subtropical plants. With the Raffia Palm also known to have the largest leaves in the world, this display brings attention to the span of these leaves and focuses attention on this important plant. Similarly, Quinn’s stainless steel orchid reflects the species of orchids that live in the Princess of Wales Conservatory only a short walk from the Palm House. The Garden also celebrates its Orchid Festival held earlier this year, the focus of which was on Madagascar, inviting visitors to the Conservatory to look at Malagasy orchids as well as the enchanting biodiversity that grows in the country.
Taking the Cherry Walk from the Palm House leads visitors straight down to the Temperate House, the world’s largest Victorian glasshouse which hosts 1,200 species from across Asia, Australasia, the Americas, and Africa. Inside are six sculptures by Quinn, as well as four standing in the gardens just outside. Marked fifteen on the blue map is Held by Desire (The Dimensions of Freedom), 2017-2018, a giant bonsai tree made from bronze, on loan from Germany’s Würth Collection for this exhibition, and one of four bronze bonsai trees in the Temperate House Octagons. A plant known to be short and compact, Quinn’s Bonsais brings attention to how the plants are usually pruned to maintain their small size. He illustrates sets of two untempered by human desire and instead grow to monumental heights, reaching their full potential.
For art lovers, the exhibition continues in the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art. This gallery is designed to help visitors further understand Quinn’s work over the years and take us through his drawings, sculptures and paintings. The Gallery uses this opportunity to highlight the whimsy within Quinn’s work as this indoor exhibition begins with his series NATURENOW. Shot on his iPhone, this series uses the phone screen as a medium to discuss the digital in our new relationship with nature.
Towards the end of the gallery, Quinn also features his frozen works. In the work titled Human Nature, designed in 2024 for this exhibition, he places Calla Lillies in the refrigeration unit set at a negative twenty-two degrees Celsius. This work also includes the use of commercially available and dried animal blood which is used as a fertiliser in this work. Quinn comments on human intervention in the lifecycles of nature beings through this work, keeping these flowers frozen in time, and addressing our over-commercialised and industrial relationship with everything around mankind.
Quinn’s collaboration with Kew Gardens is a reflection of our new relationship with nature. He focuses on the new interference of technology in all aspects of our world and the captivity of the natural life cycles of plants, trees and even animals. At the same time, this exhibition is a silent reflection, that allows the visitor to use, understand and harness the potential of his works on their own. Without any audio guides and long descriptions, Quinn’s installation is a reminder that life does not merely represent humans. By bringing his work to Kew, he represents their long and important journey in collecting and facilitating nature.
Marc Quinn: Light into Life is showing at Kew Gardens until 29th September.
Through Kew Gardens’ Victoria Gate, past the Waterlily House and opposite the Palm House, sits a beautiful stainless steel sculpture of an orchid made by Marc Quinn. Designed specifically for the botanical garden in 2024, the mesmerising sculpture borrows inspiration from the Garden’s permanent collection of orchids, representing a timeless and eternal quality with the large, hard, stainless steel structure resting next to patches of fleeting roses. The facade, however strong and timeless, in its bent corners and folded edges mimics the curvature of the petals in an orchid. Each side of the Light into Life (The Evolution of Forms) reflects a different colour: roses, green grass and the light blue (or very often cloudy) sky. The stainless steel sculpture is silver, strong and spellbinding while at the same time vibrant, full of colours and soft in its appearance. Marc Quinn’s Light into Life at Kew Gardens is an enchanting exhibition that subtly discusses our everyday impact on nature and urges visitors to preserve it.
Until the end of September, seventeen of Quinn’s sculptures will be available for visitors to view. A map, given upon entry, points out the location of each of them, dispersed like seeds all across the Gardens that span Kew and Richmond. Each artwork has been supplied with a conspicuous signpost naming it and providing a small description of the work. However, each installation does much more than simply and peacefully co-exist with their natural surroundings; they were designed by Quinn specifically for the spaces they are in. Quinn is not only a patron of the Gardens but, through his work, also aims to discuss our constantly evolving, complex relationship with nature. His pieces stand amongst nature, almost acting as mirrors, allowing visitors to reflect on their relationship with the recreated flower, the surrounding plants and trees, and nature as a whole.
In front of the Palm House stand three larger-than-life palm leaves designed by Quinn. Reflecting the enormous glass house completed in 1848, the leaves draw on Kew’s preservation of endangered and extinct tropical and subtropical plants. With the Raffia Palm also known to have the largest leaves in the world, this display brings attention to the span of these leaves and focuses attention on this important plant. Similarly, Quinn’s stainless steel orchid reflects the species of orchids that live in the Princess of Wales Conservatory only a short walk from the Palm House. The Garden also celebrates its Orchid Festival held earlier this year, the focus of which was on Madagascar, inviting visitors to the Conservatory to look at Malagasy orchids as well as the enchanting biodiversity that grows in the country.
Taking the Cherry Walk from the Palm House leads visitors straight down to the Temperate House, the world’s largest Victorian glasshouse which hosts 1,200 species from across Asia, Australasia, the Americas, and Africa. Inside are six sculptures by Quinn, as well as four standing in the gardens just outside. Marked fifteen on the blue map is Held by Desire (The Dimensions of Freedom), 2017-2018, a giant bonsai tree made from bronze, on loan from Germany’s Würth Collection for this exhibition, and one of four bronze bonsai trees in the Temperate House Octagons. A plant known to be short and compact, Quinn’s Bonsais brings attention to how the plants are usually pruned to maintain their small size. He illustrates sets of two untempered by human desire and instead grow to monumental heights, reaching their full potential.
For art lovers, the exhibition continues in the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art. This gallery is designed to help visitors further understand Quinn’s work over the years and take us through his drawings, sculptures and paintings. The Gallery uses this opportunity to highlight the whimsy within Quinn’s work as this indoor exhibition begins with his series NATURENOW. Shot on his iPhone, this series uses the phone screen as a medium to discuss the digital in our new relationship with nature.
Towards the end of the gallery, Quinn also features his frozen works. In the work titled Human Nature, designed in 2024 for this exhibition, he places Calla Lillies in the refrigeration unit set at a negative twenty-two degrees Celsius. This work also includes the use of commercially available and dried animal blood which is used as a fertiliser in this work. Quinn comments on human intervention in the lifecycles of nature beings through this work, keeping these flowers frozen in time, and addressing our over-commercialised and industrial relationship with everything around mankind.
Quinn’s collaboration with Kew Gardens is a reflection of our new relationship with nature. He focuses on the new interference of technology in all aspects of our world and the captivity of the natural life cycles of plants, trees and even animals. At the same time, this exhibition is a silent reflection, that allows the visitor to use, understand and harness the potential of his works on their own. Without any audio guides and long descriptions, Quinn’s installation is a reminder that life does not merely represent humans. By bringing his work to Kew, he represents their long and important journey in collecting and facilitating nature.
Marc Quinn: Light into Life is showing at Kew Gardens until 29th September.
Through Kew Gardens’ Victoria Gate, past the Waterlily House and opposite the Palm House, sits a beautiful stainless steel sculpture of an orchid made by Marc Quinn. Designed specifically for the botanical garden in 2024, the mesmerising sculpture borrows inspiration from the Garden’s permanent collection of orchids, representing a timeless and eternal quality with the large, hard, stainless steel structure resting next to patches of fleeting roses. The facade, however strong and timeless, in its bent corners and folded edges mimics the curvature of the petals in an orchid. Each side of the Light into Life (The Evolution of Forms) reflects a different colour: roses, green grass and the light blue (or very often cloudy) sky. The stainless steel sculpture is silver, strong and spellbinding while at the same time vibrant, full of colours and soft in its appearance. Marc Quinn’s Light into Life at Kew Gardens is an enchanting exhibition that subtly discusses our everyday impact on nature and urges visitors to preserve it.
Until the end of September, seventeen of Quinn’s sculptures will be available for visitors to view. A map, given upon entry, points out the location of each of them, dispersed like seeds all across the Gardens that span Kew and Richmond. Each artwork has been supplied with a conspicuous signpost naming it and providing a small description of the work. However, each installation does much more than simply and peacefully co-exist with their natural surroundings; they were designed by Quinn specifically for the spaces they are in. Quinn is not only a patron of the Gardens but, through his work, also aims to discuss our constantly evolving, complex relationship with nature. His pieces stand amongst nature, almost acting as mirrors, allowing visitors to reflect on their relationship with the recreated flower, the surrounding plants and trees, and nature as a whole.
In front of the Palm House stand three larger-than-life palm leaves designed by Quinn. Reflecting the enormous glass house completed in 1848, the leaves draw on Kew’s preservation of endangered and extinct tropical and subtropical plants. With the Raffia Palm also known to have the largest leaves in the world, this display brings attention to the span of these leaves and focuses attention on this important plant. Similarly, Quinn’s stainless steel orchid reflects the species of orchids that live in the Princess of Wales Conservatory only a short walk from the Palm House. The Garden also celebrates its Orchid Festival held earlier this year, the focus of which was on Madagascar, inviting visitors to the Conservatory to look at Malagasy orchids as well as the enchanting biodiversity that grows in the country.
Taking the Cherry Walk from the Palm House leads visitors straight down to the Temperate House, the world’s largest Victorian glasshouse which hosts 1,200 species from across Asia, Australasia, the Americas, and Africa. Inside are six sculptures by Quinn, as well as four standing in the gardens just outside. Marked fifteen on the blue map is Held by Desire (The Dimensions of Freedom), 2017-2018, a giant bonsai tree made from bronze, on loan from Germany’s Würth Collection for this exhibition, and one of four bronze bonsai trees in the Temperate House Octagons. A plant known to be short and compact, Quinn’s Bonsais brings attention to how the plants are usually pruned to maintain their small size. He illustrates sets of two untempered by human desire and instead grow to monumental heights, reaching their full potential.
For art lovers, the exhibition continues in the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art. This gallery is designed to help visitors further understand Quinn’s work over the years and take us through his drawings, sculptures and paintings. The Gallery uses this opportunity to highlight the whimsy within Quinn’s work as this indoor exhibition begins with his series NATURENOW. Shot on his iPhone, this series uses the phone screen as a medium to discuss the digital in our new relationship with nature.
Towards the end of the gallery, Quinn also features his frozen works. In the work titled Human Nature, designed in 2024 for this exhibition, he places Calla Lillies in the refrigeration unit set at a negative twenty-two degrees Celsius. This work also includes the use of commercially available and dried animal blood which is used as a fertiliser in this work. Quinn comments on human intervention in the lifecycles of nature beings through this work, keeping these flowers frozen in time, and addressing our over-commercialised and industrial relationship with everything around mankind.
Quinn’s collaboration with Kew Gardens is a reflection of our new relationship with nature. He focuses on the new interference of technology in all aspects of our world and the captivity of the natural life cycles of plants, trees and even animals. At the same time, this exhibition is a silent reflection, that allows the visitor to use, understand and harness the potential of his works on their own. Without any audio guides and long descriptions, Quinn’s installation is a reminder that life does not merely represent humans. By bringing his work to Kew, he represents their long and important journey in collecting and facilitating nature.
Marc Quinn: Light into Life is showing at Kew Gardens until 29th September.
Through Kew Gardens’ Victoria Gate, past the Waterlily House and opposite the Palm House, sits a beautiful stainless steel sculpture of an orchid made by Marc Quinn. Designed specifically for the botanical garden in 2024, the mesmerising sculpture borrows inspiration from the Garden’s permanent collection of orchids, representing a timeless and eternal quality with the large, hard, stainless steel structure resting next to patches of fleeting roses. The facade, however strong and timeless, in its bent corners and folded edges mimics the curvature of the petals in an orchid. Each side of the Light into Life (The Evolution of Forms) reflects a different colour: roses, green grass and the light blue (or very often cloudy) sky. The stainless steel sculpture is silver, strong and spellbinding while at the same time vibrant, full of colours and soft in its appearance. Marc Quinn’s Light into Life at Kew Gardens is an enchanting exhibition that subtly discusses our everyday impact on nature and urges visitors to preserve it.
Until the end of September, seventeen of Quinn’s sculptures will be available for visitors to view. A map, given upon entry, points out the location of each of them, dispersed like seeds all across the Gardens that span Kew and Richmond. Each artwork has been supplied with a conspicuous signpost naming it and providing a small description of the work. However, each installation does much more than simply and peacefully co-exist with their natural surroundings; they were designed by Quinn specifically for the spaces they are in. Quinn is not only a patron of the Gardens but, through his work, also aims to discuss our constantly evolving, complex relationship with nature. His pieces stand amongst nature, almost acting as mirrors, allowing visitors to reflect on their relationship with the recreated flower, the surrounding plants and trees, and nature as a whole.
In front of the Palm House stand three larger-than-life palm leaves designed by Quinn. Reflecting the enormous glass house completed in 1848, the leaves draw on Kew’s preservation of endangered and extinct tropical and subtropical plants. With the Raffia Palm also known to have the largest leaves in the world, this display brings attention to the span of these leaves and focuses attention on this important plant. Similarly, Quinn’s stainless steel orchid reflects the species of orchids that live in the Princess of Wales Conservatory only a short walk from the Palm House. The Garden also celebrates its Orchid Festival held earlier this year, the focus of which was on Madagascar, inviting visitors to the Conservatory to look at Malagasy orchids as well as the enchanting biodiversity that grows in the country.
Taking the Cherry Walk from the Palm House leads visitors straight down to the Temperate House, the world’s largest Victorian glasshouse which hosts 1,200 species from across Asia, Australasia, the Americas, and Africa. Inside are six sculptures by Quinn, as well as four standing in the gardens just outside. Marked fifteen on the blue map is Held by Desire (The Dimensions of Freedom), 2017-2018, a giant bonsai tree made from bronze, on loan from Germany’s Würth Collection for this exhibition, and one of four bronze bonsai trees in the Temperate House Octagons. A plant known to be short and compact, Quinn’s Bonsais brings attention to how the plants are usually pruned to maintain their small size. He illustrates sets of two untempered by human desire and instead grow to monumental heights, reaching their full potential.
For art lovers, the exhibition continues in the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art. This gallery is designed to help visitors further understand Quinn’s work over the years and take us through his drawings, sculptures and paintings. The Gallery uses this opportunity to highlight the whimsy within Quinn’s work as this indoor exhibition begins with his series NATURENOW. Shot on his iPhone, this series uses the phone screen as a medium to discuss the digital in our new relationship with nature.
Towards the end of the gallery, Quinn also features his frozen works. In the work titled Human Nature, designed in 2024 for this exhibition, he places Calla Lillies in the refrigeration unit set at a negative twenty-two degrees Celsius. This work also includes the use of commercially available and dried animal blood which is used as a fertiliser in this work. Quinn comments on human intervention in the lifecycles of nature beings through this work, keeping these flowers frozen in time, and addressing our over-commercialised and industrial relationship with everything around mankind.
Quinn’s collaboration with Kew Gardens is a reflection of our new relationship with nature. He focuses on the new interference of technology in all aspects of our world and the captivity of the natural life cycles of plants, trees and even animals. At the same time, this exhibition is a silent reflection, that allows the visitor to use, understand and harness the potential of his works on their own. Without any audio guides and long descriptions, Quinn’s installation is a reminder that life does not merely represent humans. By bringing his work to Kew, he represents their long and important journey in collecting and facilitating nature.
Marc Quinn: Light into Life is showing at Kew Gardens until 29th September.
