Displaying items by tag: spot paintings

Damien Hirst’s first solo exhibition in Sweden opens on 29 August, at McCabe Fine Art in Stockholm. Known for producing art that breaks boundaries and explores the relationships between art, science, religion, death and beauty, Hirst has developed a wide-ranging artistic practice that includes installation, sculpture, painting and drawing. In the twenty-six years since he emerged as a leading member of the Young British Artists (YBA) movement with ‘Freeze’, the seminal exhibition curated by Hirst in 1988, the artist has risen to international fame with iconic works that include the shark suspended in formaldehyde ("The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living," 1991) and the diamond-encrusted skull ("For the Love of God," 2007). Painting has also remained an important aspect of Hirst’s practice with prolific series including the "Spot Paintings," "Spin Paintings" and the "Kaleidoscopes"; in which vibrantly colored butterfly wings are arranged in intricate patterns and stuck into household gloss paint.

In 2008 Hirst created a series of one hundred and fifty "Psalm" paintings, each named after an Old Testament psalm.

Miami pastor was sentenced Monday to six months in jail for peddling bogus examples of some of British artist Damien Hirst's signature paintings.

Kevin Sutherland had faced a possible seven years in prison in the attempted grand larceny case, which accused him of knowingly trying to sell five fake Hirsts for $185,000 to an undercover detective. Sutherland, who plans to appeal, said he was just an art-world tyro who got confusing signals about the pieces' authenticity.

Damien Hirst, contemporary artist and leading member of the Young British Artists movement that made headlines in the 1990s, will no longer be represented by Gagosian Gallery, where he has shown his work on and off for 17 years. The news comes as a bit of a shock as earlier this year Gagosian devoted every one of his 11 galleries to Hirst’s abstract “spot” paintings.

While both art world giants claim that the split was amicable, Hirst will continue his association with London’s contemporary White Cube Gallery. It is unclear whether or not Hirst will look for additional representation in another city such as New York, where he has a large collector base.

Hirst, who is known for his excessive works of art that often include dead animals suspended in large tanks of formaldehyde and skulls engulfed in diamonds, has been regarded as the world’s wealthiest artist.