- Venue
- The Wallace Collection
- Location
- London
Damien Hirst exhibiting paintings created by his own hand?! No-one would have thought that the infamous father of the Young British Artists (YBAs) and Brit Art Movement would paint anything without the help of his trusted employees such as Rachael Howard. Hirst’s days of pickling sharks, doves and other animals in formaldehyde are probably over as the artist has intentions to pick up the paint brush more so in the future.
The exhibition No Love Lost is perhaps a follow-up to the huge retrospective, Requiem, of his work of the last 20 years at the PinchukArtCentre in Ukraine from April to September. No Love Lost also seems to have a sibling exhibit at the Whitecubes called Nothing Matters (Nov-Dec 2009) which certainly has the right exhibition title. Bad reviews have swept these paintings and Hirst’s thick skin takes the blows like so many arrows to a rhinoceros. The works have been (hugely) compared to Francis Bacon and Adrian Mole, mixing Hirst’s famous subject matter of collection (skulls, butterflies, shark jaws) with his views on death and possible afterlife, to create highly decorated x-ray paintings. Even Hirst’s famous LSD polka dots make an appearance as grid references, mixed with rather cubic backgrounds and haunting Prussian blues.
Hirst definitely has something extraordinary taking place with the colours in his palette and his manipulation of the deathly-ness of the skulls, shark jaws, flowers and butterflies, but his more figurative depictions are not as vibrant. Then again, it is easy to understand Hirst’s influence to these dramatic and theatrical paintings by touring the Collection and gazing at Poussin’s An Allegory or Titian’s Perseus and Andromeda yet Hirst believes that he could most likely be as good as Rembrandt, who also has an influential painting in the Collection. In contrast, the magnificence of the Classical, Baroque and Rococo paintings alongside Hirst’s own work is successful in drawing a stark distinction in style, colour and subject matter.
The first few floating skulls, unassisted by Hirst’s polka dots are rather still and undemanding, but later, his complicated, directional skulls transform everyday items like ash trays, cigarettes, lemons and a shell into royal products. Soon after, more attention is diverted to shark jaws, skulls and iguanas, which are just classic conceptual Hirst, bringing an absent fear of death to the viewer. The simple power of Floating Skull 2006, is an excellent opening piece before the viewer draws their eyes to The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth 2008, until reaching Requiem, White Roses and Butterflies 2008, which closes the exhibit with finesse.
Hirst has replied to the likelihood of producing more paintings: “Anyone can be like Rembrandt… Anyone can do it if you just believe. With practice, you can make great paintings.”
The exhibit is certainly dazzling and confusing and even with the blood-relative Nothing Matters exhibit, the sheer shock that the work produces in the minds of the public is enough to admire another of Hirst’s clever endeavours to demonstrate what is and should be the epitome of Contemporary Art.