Hamilton-Selway Fine Art

Before the skulls, Hirst stated painting spots, which he purposely created as a way to brand himself. Of his spot paintings, Hirst claims, “I only painted the first five and I was like, ‘f#!* this’, I hated it. As soon as I sold one, I used the money to pay people to make them. They were better at it than me. I get bored.” One such assistant asked if she could have a spot painting when she left the workshop. Hirst said she could make one of her own, perceptively quipping, “The only difference between one painted by you and one of mine is the money.” (Hirst quoted in David Cohen, ‘Inside the factory that is making Damien Hirst the world’s richest artist’, Evening Standard, 30 August 2007)

Hirst is keenly aware of the value inherent within his signature. His spot paintings and prints are in the artist’s words, “almost like a logo of an idea of myself as an artist. Some sort of sculptural consumerist idea.” As a logo, the spots can conjure a range of associations with Hirst—namely hip, edgy, cool youth culture. Because the spots are so easily reproducible and adaptable, they are able to attach to a multitude of hosts, embedding themselves in cultural space and promoting the Hirst brand. They appear on the Tate shuttle boat, adorning a singer on “Top of the Pops”, and even a Mini.

About the only work Hirst does on his spots is name them. The colors are picked at random by his assistants and arranged in a grid pattern. The negative space equals the diameter of the spots, imposing order on the random choice of colors. The artist explains the source of inspiration for his series of spot paintings: “The aim is to set up a kind of visual humming… they represent the ultimate variety of life… and are random attempts to communicate within a rigid system.” He has also said the spots were inspired by commercial drug firm catalogues. Hirst gives these pharmaceutical names like Apotryptophanase, connecting them with one of Hirst’s most famous installations, Pharmacy. Hirst has long held an interest in medicine – his company is called Science and he opened a restaurant in Notting Hill called Pharmacy. For Hirst medicine is much like art in that it provides a belief system which is just as seductive as it is futile. In the end, we all end up dead.