DAMIEN HIRST THOUGHTS, LIFE, WORK
The Most Prominent Artist of his Generation 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 attention with his first exhibition in 1988 titled 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 butterfly 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 human 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 displayed in many exhibitions, let alone with all of Hirst’s other works. Isolated Elements Swimming in the Same Direction for the purpose 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 formation.
One of Hirst’s most iconic series, the spot paintings emerged from his attempts to find “a structure where I could lay colour down, be in control of it rather than it controlling me.� Each spot is painted a different colour, is of uniform sizeequal to the size of the spaces between each spotand is arranged within a precise grid structure on the white canvas. The medicine cabinets containing pharmaceutical packaging and related elements were developed 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 prescriptions his grandmother gave him before she died. Those that followed were filled with pristine pharmaceutical packaging. The cabinets represent an oblique way of visualising the body, with each of the medicines on view corresponding to different conditions and ailments, and by extension to particular organs or parts of the body.
In addition to the medicine cabinets, Hirst created cavinets containing objects as museological specimens, including cigarettes, shells, glasses and surgical instruments. Expanding in the theme of pharmaceuticals he explored in earlier works, Hirst created a series of stainless steel cabinets containing facsimile pills, each individually produced 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 effects of pharmaceuticals.
PHARMACEUTICALS
PRIMAL FEAR "I thought, well, if I can get one in a big enough space, actually in liquid, big enogh 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 memory 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 arrangement 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 geometry, the inside is messy and uncontrollable 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 allows 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 patterns reminiscent of stained glass windows. They also have a kaleidoscopic aesthetic to them, recalling hindu and buddhist traditions and warping the viewers 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 arranged in complex patterns reminiscent of medieval stained glass windows, emphasised by the triptych's internal 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 traditional perfect ethereal body of the angel is presented from one angle, but from another holds a section of human organs.