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Catherine Long by Marc Quinn

Marc Quinn’s work addresses issues of life, death and the body. His work often comprises casts of his own body or bodily fluids. These are frozen or preserved to make the fluid solid and to give the transient longevity. He selects materials which either seduce or repel the viewer and draw on references to natural science and the history of art.

Catherine Long is part of Group Portrait, a series of life size marble portraits of people with missing or malformed limbs caused by illnesses, accident or birth. Most of the subjects are either artists or sportsmen. Catherine Long is a performance artist who also works as an art therapist with people with learning difficulties.   She, like the other sitters, chose her classical pose in discussion with Marc Quinn.  He said:

'I wanted them to have a dynamic positive nature that would highlight the strength of character of the sitters.  In the classical world the hero is someone who conquers an exterior foe or world. Now it seems to me a hero is one who conquers the inside.'

The in-depth discussions between Catherine and Marc Quinn included discussion about prosthetic limbs and society’s attitude to people without limbs. Their close working relationship making the work almost a collaboration between the two artists.

The works were conceived while Quinn was looking at sculptures in the British Museum and was struck by the question of whether the museum visiting public would respond differently if they were faced by a real person with missing limbs. 'It is about the difference between art and life. Also about inside and outside and how people impute an inside to someone from a reading of their outside.'

'Beauty is an amazing thing that you can use to get under people’s skins, to deliver a missile. These marble sculptures are incredibly beautiful, but they’re also about a challenging subject. People are seduced by the beauty of the sculpture and that makes them face something they can normally avoid'.

The acquisition of this sculpture was supported by the National Art Collections Fund, Resource/V&A Purchase Grant Fund and the Wellcome Trust.

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Catherine Long by Marc Quinn