Damien Hirst – Psalm: Domini est terra

Description

Damien Hirst, Psalm: Domini est terra is a silkscreen with Diamond Dust. This print is signed in the bottom-center of the artwork, and is numbered in the lower left from the edition of 50. Published by Other Criteria.

Psalm paintings are crafted from just two things: ordinary household paint and butterfly wings. The result is a series totalling 150 works, all marvellous and wholly hypnotic, kaleidoscopic geometry resembling Gothic stained glass windows. Damien Hirst named them after psalms from the Old Testament, thus this work being named Pslam: Domini est terra.

Hirst began using butterflies in his work as early as 1989. Describing the insect as a ‘universal trigger’, he has explained: “Everyone’s frightened of glass, everyone’s frightened of sharks, everyone loves butterflies.” The ‘Cathedrals’ are part of the ‘Kaleidoscope’ series, conceived by the artist in 2001 after he found a Victorian tea tray decorated with intricate patterns of butterfly wings. The works reference the spiritual symbolism of the butterfly, used by the Greeks to depict Psyche, the soul, and in Christian imagery to signify the resurrection. The perfect symmetry alludes to both the displays of light, color and beauty as presented in Gothic stained glass windows and the circular patterns of Buddhist mandalas. The paintings, which are rendered on uniformly-sized circular, square or diamond-shaped canvases, might variously be interpreted as explorations into the nature of beauty, religion, death and the fragility of life.

Damien Hirst is a British Conceptual artist known for his controversial take on beauty and found-art objects. Hirst was part of the Young British Artists movement that rose to prominence in the early 1990s. “I have always been aware that you have to get people listening before you can change their minds,” he reflected. “Any artist’s big fear is being ignored, so if you get debate, that’s great.” Born on June 7, 1965 in Bristol, United Kingdom, Hirst was raised in Leeds. As a student at Goldsmiths College in London, his work caught the eye of the collector and gallerist Charles Saatchi, who became an early patron. Hirst’s The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living (1991)—a large vitrine containing an Australian tiger shark suspended in formaldehyde—was financed by Saatchi and helped to launch the artist’s career. Hirst went on to win the coveted Turner Prize in 1995. In 2012, he showed what went on to be one of his most controversial work in decades, the installation In and Out of Love, which consisted of two white windowless rooms in which over 9,000 butterflies flitted around and died. The artist lives and works in London, United Kingdom.

Damien Hirst Psalm: Domini est terra

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