Marc Quinn’s ‘Light into Life’ is an absolutely EPIC, erudite, educational, elevating, essential experience for the modern age. For lovers of plants and art, for lovers of the necessary transformation to set the world to rights, this exhibition is a must.

As the climate crisis testifies, we are disconnected from nature. This alienation from the matrix from which we come, this alienation from the plant and animal life that we are related to, depend upon, has resulted in the mass extinction of plant and human life.

It is in this context that the reviewer looks at the work of Marc Quinn. And the message that Marc Quinn makes is a counter to the assumed superiority we have over nature. The message is that we share a unity with plant life, an underlying theme behind all of his work.

The most obvious place where this happens is when a huge animal cell is juxtaposed with a plant cell in the Shirley Sherwood art gallery and we are to find the similarities between the two and not focus upon the differences, as the title of the piece suggests. We are meant to be in an equal relationship with the plant kingdom, where one is not above the other, where there is no assumed hierarchy.

(c) RBG Kew – DNA Garden

The utopian bent of this represented affinity with nature and the eschewing of any hierarchy is apparent in the huge altarpiece where plant DNA and the DNA of a man and a woman share the space. The piece represents the Garden of Eden, when mankind and nature were not separated through artificial culture and ideology, but lived in peace and harmony in a paradise. The mirrored surface of the artwork makes us travel back in time and become immersed in not just the biblical time, but the scientific time of the universal common ancestor, when humans and plants hadn’t yet split up in the tree of life. We do not know where the plant DNA is interspersed with the human DNA, so the message is clear – human life is indistinguishable from plant life. In the mirrored surfaces of the altarpiece, we do not just see ourselves, but we also see the huge animal cell and the plant cell on the wall in front which are equal reflected – an accident or more intentional plan which reinforces the message.

The artwork where the artist’s head is modelled in coconut milk and frozen inside a freezer illustrates the human and plant synergy – how plants give us our identity and being. Coconut milk can be used theoretically as a substitute for plasma in the blood and mimics the thing that gives us our life force and identity, as the traditional metaphors of blood would have it. The precarious being in the freezer of this plant and human identity is a symbol that this relationship is at threat from global warming. By destroying the plants and their life giving properties, we are destroying ourselves. We are destroying our identity. Our assumed superiority to the plant world, our devaluation of it even as we exploit it, is an act of annihilation.

Light into Life (Photosynthetic Form) © Marc Quinn studio

Elsewhere, Marc Quinn’s work is beautiful and inspiring, like the representation of orchids which he depicts obsessively. He engages with Plato’s theories of mimesis in his stencils of plants he has pressed. He constructs a beautiful vase of lilies in resin which indicates our being in glass prisons of light and transparency. Everywhere, he is clever, resourceful, observant and dashing. The outside sculptures are wonderful pieces and the huge bonsai trees – which play with games of scale – are truly monumental and memorable.

Held by Desire (The Dimesions of Freedom) © RBG Kew by Ines Stuart-Davies

Light into Life features many stainless steel and bronze sculptures displayed throughout the Gardens and the Temperate House, with additional works in the Shirley Sherwood Gallery.

About the Artist

Marc Quinn (born London, January 8, 1964) is a British contemporary artist known for his wide-ranging and often provocative works that explore themes such as the body, identity, nature, and the human condition. Quinn rose to prominence in the 1990s as part of the Young British Artists (YBAs) movement.