DAMIEN HIRSTTHOUGHTS, LIFE,

WORK

Damien Hirst was born in Bristol in 1965 and grew up

in Leeds, where he began to study art. He later graduated

from Goldsmiths college in 1989. Hirst first came to public at-tention with his first exhibition in 1988 ti-

tled Freeze, which was curated by him whilst still at Goldsmiths.

Since that first pivotal show, Damien Hirst has become one of the most

prominent artists of his generation, with

many widely recognised works including The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind

of Someone Living, his many spot and butter-fly paintings and For

the Love of God.

For the Love of God 2007 is one of Hirst’s

more recognisable pieces. The life sized platinum cast of a hu-

man skull, set with 8,601 diamonds sits

on display to coincide with the exhibition.

Costing a massive £14

million to produce, the work has not been dis-played in many exhibi-tions, let alone with all of Hirst’s other

works.

Isolated Elements Swimming in the Same Direction for the pur-pose of Understanding

1991 features fish specimens, preserved

in individual cases and arranged on shelves,

appearing to float within the cabinet as if still swimming in for-

mation.

The Most Prominent

Artist of his Generation

One of Hirst’s most iconic series, the spot paint-ings emerged from his attempts to find “a struc-ture where I could lay colour down, be in con-trol of it rather than it controlling me.” Each spot is painted a different colour, is of uniform size- equal to the size of the spaces between each spot- and is arranged within a precise grid structure on the white canvas.

The medicine cabinets containing pharmaceuti-cal packaging and related elements were devel-oped concurrently with the spot paintings. In discussing the origin of the work, Hirst recalled

visiting a pharmacy with his mother and noted the contrast between her faith in modern medicine and her scepticism about the benefits of art. In the first cabinet, Sinner 1988, Hirst incorporated the personal prescrip-tions his grandmother gave him before she died.

Those that followed were filled with pristine phar-maceutical packaging. The cabinets represent an oblique way of visualising the body, with each of the medicines on view cor-responding to different conditions and ailments, and by extension to par-ticular organs or parts of the body.

In addition to the medi-cine cabinets, Hirst cre-ated cavinets containing objects as museological specimens, including ciga-rettes, shells, glasses and surgical instruments. Expanding in the theme of pharmaceuticals he ex-plored in earlier works, Hirst created a series of stainless steel cabinets containing facsimile pills, each individually pro-duced to replicate actual medicine.

In Lullaby, the seasons 2002, there is a distinct association through the title between songs that lull children to sleep and the sleep inducing ef-fects of pharmaceuticals.

PHARMACEUTICALS

PRIMAL FEAR"I thought, well, if I can get one in a big enough space, actu-

ally in liquid, big enough to frighten you, that you feel

you're in there with it, feel that it could

eat you, it would work."

The title of The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living was originally a line from an essay Hirst had written as a student. It stuck in his memo-ry until he had developed it into an actual shark, suspended in formaldehyde that would provoke a primal fear in the viewer.

A Thousand Years 1990 is the first of Hirst’s works to incorporate an arrange-ment of components inside a glass vitrine. A life cycle is played out inside this piece, in which maggots hatch inside a minimal white box, develop into flies and feed on a severed cow’s head. Many meet their end on an insect-o-cutor whilst others survive to continue the cycle. While the glass vitrine alludes to a clean minimalistic ge-ometry, the inside is messy and uncontrol-lable as the organic matter decays.

BEAUTY AND

FRAGILITY

The spin paintings are made with household gloss paint, like the spot paintings. To create each of these works, each canvas is spun on a turntable while different coloured paints are poured onto it from above. This al-lows him to exercise some distance in their execution, resulting in works that are a celebration of colour.

In some of these works, the same form of rotation used in creation is utilised in display, constantly changing the perception of the work.

In his butterfly paintings, Hirst uses the butterfly as a symbol of beauty and the inherent fragility of life. The butterflies are arranged into complex pat-terns reminiscent of stained glass windows. They also have a kaleidoscopic aes-thetic to them, recalling hindu and buddhist tradi-tions and warping the view-ers sense of reality.

Hirst expands on his use of the butterfly motif in works such as Doorways to the Kingdom of Heaven 2007.

Here the butterflies are ar-ranged in complex patterns reminiscent of medieval stained glass windows, em-phasised by the triptych's in-ternal rose-like composition and arch shaped canvases.

The religious and scientific themes in Hirst’s work are combined in the Anatomy of an Angel 2008. Carved from white marble, the tradition-al perfect ethereal body of the angel is presented from one angle, but from another holds a section of human organs.

DAMIEN HIRSTTHOUGHTS, LIFE,

WORK