MARC QUINN IRIS PAINTING COMMISSION

amfAR is proud to offer an exceptional opportunity to acquire a commissioned portrait by Marc Quinn, which will form part of his new iris painting series All About Connections. This lot is for a commissioned portrait of the winning bidder or their nominated sitter, at the size stated.* Inspired by the resilience that we all had to muster while enduring lockdowns and limited human contact, the All About Connections paintings are an evolution of the artist's iris paintings, begun in 2009. When face-to-face sittings became impossible, Quinn's perspective and process shifted to portraits that could be made remotely. The acceleration of digital interaction created a paradoxical sense of closeness at a distance: of being far yet near. Further, the works' deliberate pixelation makes the subject elusive and challenges the very nature of identity-the closer one gets, the harder the notion is to grasp. Leading contemporary artist Marc Quinn (British, born 1964) first came to prominence in the early 1990s. Quinn makes art about what it is to be a human living in the world, and his work also connects frequently with art history, from antiquity to now. He has exhibited internationally in museums and galleries, including Tate and National Portrait Gallery (London), Kunstverein Hannover, Fondazione Prada (Milan), MACRO (Rome), Fondation Beyeler (Basel), Musée Océanographique (Monaco), Fondazione Giorgio Cini (Venice), Sir John Soane's Museum (London), and CAFA Museum (Beijing). An exhibition of the artist's latest paintings, HISTORYNOW, is open at the Museo Archeologico, Venice, until October 2022. Courtesy of the artist (@marcquinnart) *Or smaller by agreement. The work shown opposite and on display at tonight's event is another example from the series and does not form part of the lot.