Damien Hirst

Damien Hirst was born in 1965 in Bristol, UK. He studied at Goldsmiths College in London. He currently lives and works in Devon and London.

Hirst first came to public attention in 1988 when he conceived and curated "Freeze," an exhibition of his work and that of his friends and fellow students at Goldsmiths.

In his work, Hirst takes a direct and challenging approach to ideas about existence. His work calls into question our awareness and convictions about the boundaries that separate desire and fear, life and death, reason and faith, love and hate. Hirst uses the tools and iconography of science and religion, creating sculptures and paintings whose beauty and intensity offer the viewer insight into art that transcends our familiar understanding of those domains. “There [are] four important things in life: religion, love, art and science,” the artist has said. “At their best, they’re all just tools to help you find a path through the darkness. None of them really work that well, but they help. Of them all, science seems to be the one right now. Like religion, it provides the glimmer of hope that maybe it will be all right in the end…”

Damien Hirst won the Turner Prize in 1995. His work has been exhibited at many museums around the world, including the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Naples, Astrup Fearnley Museet fur Moderne Kunst in Oslo, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Galerie Rudolfinum in Prague, the Wallace Collection in London, the Oceanographic Museum in Monaco, the Museo di Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, and the Tate Modern in London.

http://www.damienhirst.com/