Damien Hirst exhibits his new paintings, dedicated to the sea, for the first time

For the first time, Damien Hirst is exhibiting new paintings from his Coast Paintings, Sea Painting, and Seascapes series, which have never before been shown to the public.Fans of the British artist will be able to see the new works at Phillips Galleries in London’s Berkeley Square from July 20 to August 18, 2023. The exhibition is presented by Heni Primary with support from the artist’s galleries, Gagosian and White Cube.

For these three series, Hirst was inspired byAbstract Expressionism, particularly Robert Motherwell’s Beside the Sea series of paintings from the 1960s. Moreover, the inspiration also comes from Hirst’s lifelong connection to the sea. The exhibition in which the works are displayed is titled Where the Land Meets the Sea, and the works are meant to evoke, in particular, Hirst’s pastime of walking on the beach and observing the sea. A catalog of the complete series will be available soon.

"Phillips is absolutely thrilled to host Where the Land Meets the Sea, an extraordinary exhibition featuring new paintings by Damien Hirst," says Cheyenne Westphal, president of Phillips. "Hirst’s bold and unparalleled artistic vision has captivated audiences around the world, and this showcase of fascinating works from his Coast Paintings, Sea Paintings and Seascapes series is no exception. Combining abstraction and photorealism, Hirst evokes the power and beauty of coastal landscapes, paying homage to abstract expressionism and drawing inspiration from Robert Motherwell’s Beside the Sea series of paintings. This immersive showcase invites viewers to contemplate themes of mortality and existence as we join in celebrating Hirst’s relentless quest to challenge artistic boundaries."

“I am thrilled to present my latest series of paintings,” says Hirst, "at Phillips Auction House in Berkeley Square in London, and to collaborate with HENI. Where the Land Meets the Sea is an exploration inspired by the sea in gray British winters; I grew up in Leeds in West Yorkshire and often vacationed in Scarborough, Filey, Whitby where Count Dracula landed, Robin Hood’s Bay and Skegness. I have always spent a lot of time walking and thinking on the beach and watching the sea, witnessing the powerful action of the crashing waves in winter. It gives me a feeling of irrelevance, vastness and inevitability, that this whole world and everything in it will eventually consume itself into nothingness."

Created in 2019, the Coast Paintings are colorful action paintings intended to convey the energy, excitement and change experienced by the sea in winter. The Coast Paintings began life as gray canvases that were laid on the floor of Hirst’s studio while he was painting his acclaimed Cherry Blossoms series. Each painting is named after a British coastal location, and a corresponding postcard is affixed to the back of each canvas. Constructed through Hirst’s now characteristic painting practice of intuitively splashing paints of various colors onto his canvases, the Coast Paintings sometimes leave vast passages of the underlying gray canvas exposed. With the exposed gray canvas evoking the winter sky, the Coast Paintings emerge as aerial maps or satellite images of shimmering coastlines seen through pockets of cloud cover. These compositions evolve through 168 paintings. Sometimes vibrant greens and soft pinks cover the canvases, while at other times deep reds and browns thickly but sparsely dot the surfaces. Sometimes the compositions evoke islands or peninsulas, while in others there is a sense of the moment when a long coastline meets the sea. Through each unique composition, Hirst intends to capture a sense of fragmented light in the British seas in winter.

The Sea Paintings, on the other hand, capture images of coastal storms from around the world in photorealistic detail. A series of 64 paintings in two different sizes rendered in grayscale, Sea Paintings echo the temperament of the British coasts that Hirst observed during the winter. Created in 2022, Sea Paintings represents the latest development in his 25-year effort to perfectly recreate photographs in paint, what he calls “Fact Paintings.” Hirst has struggled with photography since childhood when he was told, “When you can paint like a photograph, then you are a true artist!” Paired with dark, intrusive clouds, these dynamic images of coastal storms are frozen in time with the click of a button. In the Sea Paintings, these random, energetic moments were then slowly painted over months and years. In this way, disposable photographic moments are immortalized in paint. The Sea Paintings are embedded with a juxtaposition of chance and intentionality, order and chaos.

Finally, the Seascapes combine the photorealistic images of his Sea Paintings series with the expressionistic sketches of his Coast Paintings, capturing the scenes and sensations of the crashing seas. Produced in 2021, underlying the Seascapes series are duplicates of the 64 photographic works in two different sizes from the Sea Paintings series after images of storms from around the world. These paintings were then overloaded with thrown and more gestural painting, specifically using only grayscale colors to mirror the tones of the underlying images. Speaking of the relationship between Seascapes and Sea Paintings, Hirst says, " Seascapes and Sea Paintings could perhaps be seen in pairs as each series complements and references the other and in each series we see two types of action or forces at work."

The thickly splashed paintings in Seascapes build on the underlying compositions, seemingly mimicking the spray of water emanating from the waves and creating the feeling of captured moments. The addition of a tactile layer of paint to the already energetic images is meant to lead the power of nature represented in the compositions one step closer to the viewer.

Damien Hirst exhibits his new paintings, dedicated to the sea, for the first time

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