31 Jan Cult-Status Collectibles From Damien Hirst: An Icon Of Our Time
Source Credit: Content and images from Nonsuch Foundation by Nonsuch Foundation. Read the original article - https://nonsuchfoundation.com/cult-status-collectibles-from-damien-hirst-an-icon-of-our-time/
Few artists can claim to have come close to the international notoriety achieved by UK creator Damien Hirst. His work, often shocking in nature, plays rebelliously with themes of science, religion, life and death, and frequently pushes the viewer far from the familiar realms of their comfort zone. Other works, however, are charged with vibrancy, color, and positive energy. Despite the broad spectrum of his creative output, Hirst argues that “Art’s about life and it can’t really be about anything else… there isn’t anything else.” And so, we must ask ourselves, when we view his pieces, what do we discover about our own experience of life?
The Makings Of An Artistic Icon
Hirst was born Damien Steven Brennan in Bristol, before an early move made the city of Leeds the backdrop to his childhood. We can imagine that Hirst’s provocative sensibility may have been stoked by his Irish Catholic mother, who disapproved of Hirst’s antics, to the extent of cutting up his punk-style clothing and even melting his Sex Pistols vinyl record into a bowl. With arrests for shoplifting, and poor grades, Hirst may have given his mother cause to curtail him, but for every disapproval, Hirst’s passion for drawing was always encouraged.
At an early age, Hirst’s determined nature had begun to manifest, as he refused to take no for an answer. Having been initially declined for admission to Jacob Kramer College, he reapplied until eventually accepted into the art college’s Foundational Diploma. Subsequently, he moved to London, where he spent two years working in construction. Once again, his initial application to study Fine Art at Goldsmiths College was refused, but his persistence secured him a place in 1986. While a student, Hirst took a placement at a mortuary – no doubt an experience that became a foundational pivot into his most infamous works: multiple series of real animal carcasses, suspended in glass tanks of formaldehyde.
Source Credit: Content and images from Nonsuch Foundation by Nonsuch Foundation. Read the original article - https://nonsuchfoundation.com/cult-status-collectibles-from-damien-hirst-an-icon-of-our-time/