Colour Space Paintings
When you think of Damien Hirst you either think ‘spot paintings’, ‘diamond skull,’ or ‘formaldehyde shark.’ I wasn’t planning on this exhibition being particularly moving, BUT I was so wrong. Seeing these works in person brought me so much joy (mostly because they reminded me of candy.)
This seems to be Hirst’s motive, since he stated on his instagram:
“I can’t work out whether the Colour Space are emotional or unemotional paintings, they look happy. I wanted to make paintings that ultimately give you nothing but a visual buzz" - Damien Hirst
In this exhibition, Hirst made sure no two exact colors repeat on each painting, and he wanted the human element to be present (so any drips or irregularities should be distinguishable by the eye).
I discovered these fun facts on Hirst's Instagram - which he's suprisingly savy at (particularly in comparison to his fellow artists).
It's no suprise that this exhibtion was held at Gagosian, the two go way back..he had his first show there in 1996, and he’s currently represented by them.
As a reminder Gagosian is the queen bee of the art world. Dominating over all other galleries with it’s sleek business processes and global enterprises, it is to the art world, what Facebook is to the tech world. With locations in New York, Beverly Hills, San Francisco, London, Paris, Geneva, Athens.......(told you they're a global enterprise). They represent artists such as Urs Fischer, Takashi Murakami, Christopher Wool and Jenny Saville.
Damien Hirst was born in the UK and works in the UK. And in a very UK fashion has won the Turner Prize (aka British Grammy’s for the art world) in 1995.
Fun Fact: Hirst is thought to be the richest living artist. He sold his show Beautiful Inside My Head Forever at Sotheby's for $198 million -- which certainly didn't hurt securing him the title.
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