When an artist is so concentrated on focusing on impossibility, both nature and death become an essential field for representation.
—António Cerveira Pinto
Damien Hirst
The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, 1991
“I didn’t just want a lightbox or a painting of a shark”
—Damien Hirst
Damien Hirst
A Thousand Years, 1990
Damien Hirst
Butterfly colour painting, 2012
Damien Hirst
Cherry Blossoms […] Fondation Cartier in Paris (2018, 2019)
“The Cherry Blossoms are about beauty and life and death. They’re extreme – there’s something almost tacky about them. Like Jackson Pollock twisted by love. They’re decorative but taken from nature. They’re about desire and how we process the things around us and what we turn them into, but also about the insane visual transience of beauty – a tree in full crazy blossom against a clear sky. It’s been so good to make them, to be completely lost in colour and in paint in my studio. They’re garish and messy and fragile and about me moving away from Minimalism and the idea of an imaginary mechanical painter and that’s so exciting to me.”
— Damien Hirst
Damien Hirst
Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable (2017)
Damien Hirst
Mental Escapology, St. Moritz, February 2 – April 5, 2021
Damien Hirst
Temple, 2008
“I loved that it was like a toy, similar to a medical thing, but much happier, friendlier, more colourful and bright.”
— Damien Hirst
Damien Hirst
The Monk, 2014
“I think what makes you believe in things is not what’s there, it’s what’s not there.”
— Damien Hirst