Damien Hirst Butterfly Heart (Small) H7-4, 2020

Damien Hirst

Butterfly Heart (Small) H7-4, 2020

Laminated Giclée print on aluminium composite panel in original publisher's packaging
Signed by Damien Hirst & numbered 1483/3510 on the reverse

13 4/5 × 14 3/5 × 1 1/2 inches

Unframed

Digitally signed by Damien Hirst & numbered 1483/3510 on the reverse
Excellent condition; in original packaging.
In Damien Hirst’s ‘Butterfly Heart (Small)’ he combines the rainbow, a symbol of support for the NHS in Britain throughout the pandemic, with butterflies, one of Hirst’s best‐known motifs.
In May 2020, Damien Hirst released his vibrant ‘Butterfly Heart’, one of four limited edition rainbow prints produced during the COVID‐19 pandemic. With all of the profits of its sale donated to The Felix Project, the print was released within a fixed time frame for purchase. As such, the number of editions ordered determined the final size of the edition. ‘Butterfly Heart’ combines the rainbow, a symbol of support of the NHS (National Health Service) in Britain throughout the pandemic, with butterflies, one of Hirst’s best‐known motifs. This laminated giclée print on aluminium composite panel is digitally composed of photographed butterfly wings assembled into bands of colour, their puzzle‐like compositions recollective of his ‘Kaleidoscope’ works. Ranging from the yellow wings that nearly fade into the background to the bold blue wings rendered with practically scientific detail, Hirst’s perennial love for butterflies and attention to their multitudinous forms is distinctly present. Hirst’s ‘Butterfly Heart’ is both a standout contribution to his oeuvre of butterfly works and an emotive tribute to those who have sacrificed much to help the country through the COVID‐19 pandemic. ‘I want to pay tribute to them with this rainbow heart, a symbol of solidarity and hope’.

Provenance
Acquired from the publisher

More about Damien Hirst:
The Turner prize winner and epicenter of the YBA movement. Hirst's emblematic art of our era revolutionizes the art market. Hirst is widely regarded as one of the most important artists working today, creating truly iconic artworks. A genuine star of the Young British Artists (YBA) movement, Damien Hirst has always made a point of mixing up different media. Whether as a sculptor, an installation artist, a painter, or a printmaker, Hirst has produced many of the most spectacular and widely discussed works in recent years and helped to revolutionize the art market. Damien Hirst’s, For the Love of God, the diamond-encrusted replica of the skull of a thirty-five-year-old man from the thirteenth century, broke all records to become the most expensive contemporary artwork in the world. Damien Hirst´s artworks are truly emblematic icons of our era, with their recurring motives such as dots, butterflies, cows, sharks, skulls, pills, and pharmacy cabinets. His works, captivating and intense as they are, challenge our stereotyped concepts and beliefs. Damien Hirst’s shark, suspended in formaldehyde, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living (1991), is widely recognized, as are his real butterflies suspended in paint or thousands of butterfly wings arranged in a mandala-like pattern – the famous Damien Hirst butterfly paintings. Since 1986 he has been producing the Spot paintings (sometimes called Dot Paintings), a series of paintings with evocative pharmacological titles, which display lines of colored spots. Damien Hirst´s Spot paintings and his Spin paintings became iconic series. Inspired by such diverse themes as life, death, art, science, and medicine, Damien Hirst’s art takes a direct and challenging approach to ideas about existence. The energy and inventiveness are also to be found in Damien Hirst's prints, which continue to stir controversy within the viewer with the same intensity.