The extensive practice of Damien Hirst includes installation, sculpture, painting and drawing. Constantly challenging the boundaries between art, science and religion, his visceral and visually stunning work has made him a leading artist of his generation.
Hirst explores the tensions and uncertainties at the core of the human experience. Love, desire, belief, and the struggle to live with the knowledge of death are all investigated, often in ways unconventional and unexpected.
Hirst is perhaps best known for his series of works "Natural History" which presents animals in showcases suspended in formaldehyde. These iconic sculptures seek to rephrase fundamental questions about the meaning of life and the fragility of biological existence.
Source: Whitecube
And it is that the fascinating thing about Hirst is that he uses the showcases as window and barrier, seducing the viewer visually while providing a minimalist geometry to frame, contain and objectify his subject.
Thus, science and our unquestioning faith in the power of pharmaceuticals remains one of Hirst's most enduring themes, displaying in his works a cornucopia of reflective and precision-tooled surgical implements housed in steel and glass cases.
In 2007, Hirst created what is arguably his most provocative work: For the Love of God, a life-size cast-in-platinum human skull encased entirely in 8.601 VVS pavé-set flawless diamonds.
Though unprecedented in art history, the work functions as a traditional memento mori by using an object to address the transience of human existence.
Hirst is equally well known for his paintings, such as the series of works featuring butterflies suspended in thick layers of glossy paint and the "Kaleidoscope Paintings," where thousands of butterfly wings are arranged in mandala-like patterns.
Always torn between continual transformation, Hirst uses a machine that centrifugally disperses paint as it is poured onto the canvas. random spontaneity it is present in the work of the artist who is usually at the mercy of the questions raised by the painting, and sometimes, of himself.
Weaving fact and fiction to create a labyrinthine narrative, Hirst combines valuable archaeological relics removed from the shipwreck, some of which are so encrusted with coral and marine life that their forms are unrecognizable, with their own sculptures, documentary photographs, videos and drawings.
Damien Hirst He was born in 1965 in bristol, uk, and lives and works in London y Gloucestershire.
Since 1987, there have been more than 90 solo exhibitions of his art around the world, and he has been included in more than 300 group shows.
His work can be found in important collections, such as the British Museum, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Museum of Modern Art, New York, Tate, Stedelijk Museum, Yale Center for British Art, Broad Collection, Victoria and Albert Museum, Fondazione Prada, and Museo Jumex, among many others.
