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Contemporary artist Marc Quinn is one of the leading names of the twenty first century British art scene. Famous for casting his head in ten pints of his own frozen blood, and for crowning Trafalgar Square’s fourth plinth with the exceptional marble sculpture of artist Alison Lapper, Quinn has been a rising star of the art world since the 1990s, producing an extensive and distinctive oeuvre like no other. With a penchant for humanity’s darker side and a tendency toward the existential, Quinn creates an art that thinks, always probing life’s big questions through an aesthetic which is captivating. ‘Labyrinth AG’ follows from Quinn’s series of sculptural canvases, depicting the human fingerprint, blown up to an impressive sale until it becomes an abstract image. Subverting the Duchampian readymade, Quinn takes his found ‘object’ from the natural world, translating the tiny but profound marker of individual humanity to the canvas for maximum impact. ‘Labyrinth AG’ takes the concept to a new level by introducing the woodcut the image of the fingerprint is now multilayered, as the wood grain remains visible, creating two abstract maps of the natural world at once. The end result is minimal and simple a large, silver tear drop shape in the centre of a white rectangle, traced with the twisting lines of the fingerprint and the effect is beautiful and enduringly powerful.
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