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Lot Essay
Polypectate Sodium is one of Damien Hirst's comparatively rare works using one-inch diameter spots, produces a hypnotizing array of colors interspersed throughout the canvas. Immediately recognizable, the "Spot Paintings" construct an abbreviated and closed plane of experience through calculated gradients of primary, secondary and tertiary household paint colors tightly grided within the foreground and contrasted against a stark white background. "(I)n the spot paintings the grid-like structure creates a beginning of a system. On each painting no two colors are the same. This ends the system; it's a simple system." (Damien Hirst, I want to spend the rest of my life everywhere, with every one, one to one, always forever, now, London 1997 p. 244).
With the use of a differentiating pattern of colors, Hirst creates -- from a distance -- an uneven flow throughout the work. The inherent weight and perceived content of each color forces the eye through this minefield of the individual characteristics and systematic ordering; a manic experience tightly manipulated by the artist. However, upon close inspection, the linear design ceases and the unique, individual quality of each spot comes to light. The subtle imperfections in the perimeter of each of the spots illustrate the individualistic quality behind each work.
Specifically, Polypectate Sodium represents the jumping off point for another system of realization for the artist. Courting the placebo with repetition and minimalism, this work engenders all that is so maddeningly challenging about Hirst, the faux-sublime, the sterile and bodily, the intellectual and spontaneous, and the ultimately stimulating experience in each work.
With the use of a differentiating pattern of colors, Hirst creates -- from a distance -- an uneven flow throughout the work. The inherent weight and perceived content of each color forces the eye through this minefield of the individual characteristics and systematic ordering; a manic experience tightly manipulated by the artist. However, upon close inspection, the linear design ceases and the unique, individual quality of each spot comes to light. The subtle imperfections in the perimeter of each of the spots illustrate the individualistic quality behind each work.
Specifically, Polypectate Sodium represents the jumping off point for another system of realization for the artist. Courting the placebo with repetition and minimalism, this work engenders all that is so maddeningly challenging about Hirst, the faux-sublime, the sterile and bodily, the intellectual and spontaneous, and the ultimately stimulating experience in each work.