His mixed-media sculptures are created from a frequently controversial assortment of formaldehyde-suspended carcasses, cigarette butts, pharmaceutical packaging, and surgical instruments, often encased in glass vitrines. The paintings are composed of hundreds of identically sized colored spots aligned into grids and named after controlled substances.
In the Warholian tradition of repetitive, serial images, these unashamedly formulaic paintings use simple, cheerful means to suggest anxious questions, such as: Is art a drug? Do drugs heal or harm? Hirst has continued to meditate on the rituals of nature and death in often monumental, headline-grabbing scale. His most famous series, Natural History, features formaldehyde-preserved animals in large tanks, such as Away from the Flock , , in which a sheep is suspended in fluid.
The subject vacillates between its nascent, wooly state and its current lifeless, pickled state, referencing the sacrificial lamb as a representation of Christ. Hirst looks for an aesthetic beauty in death, often with the realization that beauty itself may depend on cycles of life and the passing away of matter. Such haunting beauty is found in The Kingdom of the Father , , a colossal triptych made of thousands of butterflies mired in house paint.
The deaths of the butterflies add a sobering note to the astonishing grandeur of the paintings, made to mimic the stained glass of a church apse. By turning raw, physical matter into an object of seemingly metaphysical import, Hirst upends our assumptions about how images represent reality and communicate culturally.
Conceived, carved, cast, or constructed—sculpture remained a continuously strong tradition throughout the twentieth century in Britain. Artists such as Henry Moore , Anthony Caro , Michael Craig-Martin , Rachel Whiteread , Damien Hirst , and Douglas Gordon have extended this lineage, often focusing on human figures or body parts, transforming materials and techniques, including language, into a widely diverse practice that is internationally recognized. In this series Hirst combines thick brushstrokes and elements of gestural painting, referencing Impressionism, Pointillism, and Action painting.
The monumental canvases, which are entirely covered in dense bright colors, envelop the viewer in a vast floral landscape moving between figuration and abstraction. Together with the Thirty Four Gallery and the Model Gallery , these miniature galleries tell the story of Modern British art from the s through today. June 8—November 7, Galleria Borghese, Rome galleriaborghese. Photo: A. See all Museum Exhibitions for Damien Hirst. About People are afraid of change, so you create a kind of belief for them through repetition.
DamienHirst Facebook Twitter E-mail. Website damienhirst. Previous Slide Next Slide. For Sale: Baby Shoes. Never Worn. Photo: Jochen Littkemann.
Art Fair Frieze Masters Museum Exhibitions. Damien Hirst review — just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water by Jonathan Jones. Damien Hirst created a new work to support the U. I did that show of cherry blossoms called Two Weeks, One Summer in Because it is just two weeks in the summer, when they come out. And again I had the same thing where I had to rush like mad and paint all the paintings.
With this cherry blossom series, you said you are aiming at 90 works. Yeah, 90 including multi-panels.
Why 90? I did a plan of all the multi-panel works; I just drew it out of what would be good to do if you imagine a show. I thought, I just want to make enough, really, so you get it out of your system. I started off doing endless series, and then it becomes a bit complicated, so I think keeping it under feels nice. You think you can just go into it, create it, get out the other end of it. Do you have any idea of where you want to show them?
We have been talking to museums in Paris and Rome; they might do something in there with their collections. Or not show them; you can just wait. It worked for a while and then I started making mistakes and I had to get a studio. You need time to make things, and also time to consider them. The galleries were not clear, either. If you make good art people will want it; you just have to believe that. Usually, if I think about people buying things, it goes wrong. I would never have made the shark if I was thinking about people buying things.
Or spot paintings on the wall. I mean, even the size of these would have to have been a lot smaller; with the Veils , people have not got walls that size.
I hope so. Yeah, well I think it is. I remember with the Saatchi Gallery, when Saatchi was first buying all that art and stuff, there were people at my art school saying it was affecting art values with buying power.
And everyone was up in arms about it. You have to believe that. And you have to believe that the currency is art and not money. That is why people pay a lot of money for it. I think I sort of stop at for a great Picasso; there are enough people in the world to make that make some sort of financial sense. But anything above that I get a bit spooked. I prefer a Richard Dadd. Which are your favourite Old Masters? I like the messier painters: Rembrandt, Goya, Titian, Soutine. And what about sculptors?
I mean, they stand above everyone else, really. So, in a way, having your cherry blossoms in Rome would be a match made in heaven. Yeah, I thought maybe some of the Treasures corals might be good to exhibit with them as well: link the blossom tree paintings to sculpture and the way that the coral grows and hang them over the corals.
Damien Hirst. Blossoming artist: Damien Hirst on returning to the studio, fluorescent florals and the 'muppets' in government. Hirst has spent the past 18 months in his London studio painting cherry blossom and now, in an exclusive interview, he explains why this new body of work is a matter of life and death. Alison Cole.
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