Born in Bristol, in 1965, Damien Hirst studied at Godsmith's College, University of London, 1986-1989.While still a student, he organized a collective exposition called "Freeze", which included works of his colleagues and his. This exposition turned him famous.
Damien Hirst’s best known works are his paintings, medicine cabinet sculptures, and glass tank installations. For the most part, his paintings have taken on two styles. One is an arrangement of color spots with titles that refer to pharmaceutical chemicals, known as Spot paintings. The second, his Spin paintings, are created by centrifugal force, when Hirst places his canvases on a spinner, and pours the paint as they spin. In the medicine cabinet pieces, Hirst redefines sculpture with his arrangements of various drugs, surgical tools, and medical supplies.His tank pieces, which contain dead animals, that are preserved in formaldehyde, are another kind of sculpture and directly address the inevitable mortality of all living beings.
His work is often challenging in subject matter and difficult to live with. Hirst's subjects include animal corpses, skulls, flies, maggots and religious iconography. His work consistly revolves around the intertwined topics of science and religion, questioning the transition of society from a belief in God to a belief in drugs and science.
Sources:
http://collection.britishcouncil.org/collection/artist/5/18231
http://www.britishmuseum.org/the_museum/museum_in_london/london_exhibition_archive/statuephilia/damien_hirst.aspxhttp://www.gagosian.com/artists/damien-hirst/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/damienhirst
http://www.eyestorm.com/artists/profile/Damien_Hirst.html
Personal reflection:
Damien Hirst work is definitely a mixture of science and religion, an art with a new perspective about life and death, repulsion and beauty. It is somehow connected to human life.
But his work can provoque strong reactions. It challenges us to reflect about the human condition, to explore the questions "what is death?", "what is life?", "why do we exist?". If we think about this for a moment, well, his work seems to have a great purpose. But when I see all these real animal corpses preserved in tanks, "macabre", death, repulsion are the words that comes instinctively to my mind. Why? I really can't explain.
Nevertheless, I appreciate indeed the statue "Virgin Mother", a reflection about the beginning of life, birth, and the sculpture "For the Love of God", not because of the skull but due to its originatlity, hard work of encrusting the diamonds and its beauty ("The diamonds are the girls best friend").
