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Lot Essay
The wildlife material used in this Lot has been certified by the artist's studio as not being from an endangered or other protected species of wildlife. Customs laws and regulations governing the import and export of artwork containing wildlife material can differ depending on the country concerned. If you plan to import the lot, you should check the relevant customs laws and regulations in the country of intended import before bidding on the lot. The inability of a client to export or import property containing wildlife material is not a basis for cancellation or setting aside the contract of sale.
Damien Hirst's work deals with life and death in ways arguably more direct than any previous artist. His fascination with life cycles and the inevitability of death began with the incorporation in his works of various living and notoriously, dead, animals and insects. This has ranged from the preserved shark and farmyard animals to the photographs of mutilated corpses; from the life-cycle works involving the birth and death of insects to his poetic butterfly works.
The present work Daemon , executed in 2007, is a very fine and intricate example of Hirst's butterfly paintings. The radiant red from the household gloss paint and the shiny black at the tip of butterfly wings formed a much elegant composition of concentric circles. From a distance, these timeless butterflies, gathered from Peru, Central African Republic, Phil ippines and I taly, are bursting from the flaming red background, almost as if they are arising from a different form of life.
In Daemon , the sheen of the gloss and the shimmer of the butterfly are akin to the stained glass windows of Chartres or Notre Dame, and in this way they function as both window and barrier, seducing the viewer into the work but acting as a boundary to further inquisition. Tradi tionally a symbol of rebirth, throughout the Renaissance and treasured by cultures the world over for their rarity and beauty, the butterfly, from birth to death, is a precious object; ironically, their entrapment, which ultimately results in their death. The dichotomy of love and death, beauty and vulgarity, timelessness and mortality, is present in one labyrinth of butterflies. For Damien Hirst, the butterfly is a perfect symbol, capable of conveying the inherent oppositional forces that are the hallmark of his works.
Damien Hirst's work deals with life and death in ways arguably more direct than any previous artist. His fascination with life cycles and the inevitability of death began with the incorporation in his works of various living and notoriously, dead, animals and insects. This has ranged from the preserved shark and farmyard animals to the photographs of mutilated corpses; from the life-cycle works involving the birth and death of insects to his poetic butterfly works.
The present work Daemon , executed in 2007, is a very fine and intricate example of Hirst's butterfly paintings. The radiant red from the household gloss paint and the shiny black at the tip of butterfly wings formed a much elegant composition of concentric circles. From a distance, these timeless butterflies, gathered from Peru, Central African Republic, Phil ippines and I taly, are bursting from the flaming red background, almost as if they are arising from a different form of life.
In Daemon , the sheen of the gloss and the shimmer of the butterfly are akin to the stained glass windows of Chartres or Notre Dame, and in this way they function as both window and barrier, seducing the viewer into the work but acting as a boundary to further inquisition. Tradi tionally a symbol of rebirth, throughout the Renaissance and treasured by cultures the world over for their rarity and beauty, the butterfly, from birth to death, is a precious object; ironically, their entrapment, which ultimately results in their death. The dichotomy of love and death, beauty and vulgarity, timelessness and mortality, is present in one labyrinth of butterflies. For Damien Hirst, the butterfly is a perfect symbol, capable of conveying the inherent oppositional forces that are the hallmark of his works.