Damien Hirst

Utopia

Maker

Damien Hirst (English, b. 1965)

Title

Utopia

Year

2008

Medium

Materials/Techniques

Techniques

Materials

paint

Supports

Dimensions

Sheet: 136 x 134 cm (53 9/16 x 52 3/4 inches)

Signature / Inscription / Marks

Signed at lower left; titled in lower right

Credit / Object Number

Credit

Richard Brown Baker Fund for Contemporary British Art

Object Number

2009.12

Type

Publications

Exhibition History

Made in the UK
Contemporary Art from the Richard Brown Baker Collection
Sep 23, 2011 – Jan 08, 2012

Label copy

A provocative artist associated with the YBAs (Young British Artists), Damien Hirst often employs unexpected materials that conflate art, science, and popular culture. The hundreds of butterflies mounted in paint in Utopia-with their intense colors and symmetrical, geometric composition-recall a mandala or kaleidoscope image. Butterflies are among Hirst’s most frequent motifs. With their delicacy and short life cycles, they are a metaphor for the fragility of existence that reflects the artist’s interest in fundamental questions about mortality.

Nature/Artifice
Contemporary Works from the Collection
Apr 25, 2009 – Feb 28, 2010

Image use

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In copyright This object is in copyright

Tombstone

Damien Hirst (English, b. 1965)
Utopia, 2008
Butterflies and household gloss paint on paper
Sheet: 136 x 134 cm (53 9/16 x 52 3/4 inches)
Richard Brown Baker Fund for Contemporary British Art 2009.12

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