About Damien Hirst’s Work

Our Damien Hirst Catalogue is divided between prints and original paintings and installations. As one of the great contemporary artists of our time, Damien Hirst has created melancholic, vibrant paintings and prints—often incorporating dots, large swathes of bold color, and paint splatters—and shocked audiences with ready-made installations which often incorporate dead organisms. The latter has led much of his art to become associated with the concept of death, as many of his well known pieces directly confront the audience with a reminder of mortality. He did this most famously in 1991 with his work The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, which is composed of a tiger shark suspended in formaldehyde in large glass display case. Similarly, in 2007, he created For the Love of God, another memento mori and one of his most publicized works, which is made of an 18th century human skull completely covered in diamonds. Hirst also makes use of everyday objects, such as pills, and even cigarette butts, in his installations.

Damien Hirst’s originals are not inhibited by a dedication to any single theme or emotion. Rather, they traverse a wide range of abstract motifs, and may be said to evoke senses of chaos, perfection, geometric order and simplicity, nature, and, of course, mortality. He is well known for his spot paintings which, as their name would suggest, involve series of variously sized, pastel-colored circles on canvases of differing shapes and sizes. Hirst has also received praise for his so-called Spin Paintings, which he began in the early-to-mid 2000’s. In these paintings, Hirst drips paint onto a rapidly spinning wheel, so that an array of colors blend in a kaleidoscope, alienating his own artistic touch from the canvas and allowing the colors to express their own nature at the mercy of centrifugal force. These works have a powerful sense of movement to them. Some display spirals, ring-like formations, solar flares and explosions, and some are covered in butterflies.

Since Damien Hirst’s artistic origins at the helm of the Young British Artists scene, his prolific career continues to elevate contemporary art to new heights, inspiring countless future generations of visual and conceptual artists. His expanding catalogue of cryptically-named, abstract expressions of emotion and profound thought will afford him the recognition by the whole world as one of the greatest artists of any genre to have ever lived.