Interesting Pieces Of Artwork Hirst example essay topic

Damien Hirst was born in 1965, in Bristol. He took his first steps to becoming an artist in 1986 and studied Fine art at Goldsmith College, University of London. In 1988, whilst at Goldsmith College, Hirst cur rated his very own exhibition entitled 'The Freeze', his exhibition contained many other young artists, but Hirst was the main driver. Many critics thought Hirst was too big for his own boots, but proved them all wrong when his exhibition took of like a storm and was a success. Little did Hirst know but this was to be the exhibition that would make him what he is now. He established himself in the art world.

It was not long after this that Hirst created his first major piece of art 'Away from the flock'. Whilst being exhibited it was vandalized when someone poured ink into the formaldehyde preserving the sheep. This was a blessing in disguise for Hirst as it attracted copious amounts of publicity and is now one of the most famous contemporary works of art in Britain. It seems to me that Damien Hirst has made his millions and his position in the art world not by producing quality work, but by creating work that that caused a stir, therefore producing major publicity and criticism. Every exhibition Hirst takes part in, the reviews are very rarely positive and are often full of criticism. His work attracts a very wide range of people as his work ranges from very normal to beyond the extreme.

Hirst has produced a great deal of work many of which is three-dimensional and must be seen in real life to truly appreciate them. You cannot feel the true impact that the work is supposed to have on you and see the details of the preserved animals if you just see them in a print. Hirst uses dead animals to convey themes of life and death, and the use of a real animal helps to convey this. Even though photographs are supposed to capture the moment they do not convey the reality of the work and somehow shield the viewer from what he or she is really seeing. They provide a barrier and the shock value is taken away. Say the name 'Damien Hirst' and you automatically think of dead animals!

He made several pieces containing animals, each piece with a certain shock factor. 'Away from the flock' however, if you were to view it amongst his other pieces, which I shall detail later on, it does not shock you as much as the others. The reason for this is because it is not massacred in any way unlike his other work with the cows. The piece has certain sadness about it though, as the way it is placed in the tank is as if it is a happy frolicking lamb, yet it is dead, persevered and is unable to do this. Also the size has a lot to do with it, many of his other pieces are much larger, therefore they have a lot more impact on the viewer and are more confrontational.

This makes this piece a very thought provoking piece. 'Ammonium Biborate' 1993 If you were to see this hanging on a gallery wall, you wouldn't recognise it as Hirst's work. Here Hirst has thought about colour and form, but in a contextual way. It's regularly arranged and the colours play around with your eyes as you look at it.

It's best to view this piece from a distance as it allows your eyes to focus in on certain parts of the piece, rather than let your eyes get overwhelmed with all the colours and the random sequence. His use of colour automatically draws your eyes to certain sections of the piece and the colours also convey different moods, blue-cool, yellow-warm / happiness, red-anger etc. Hirst has made many of these paintings, each with different titles, and some different shapes and sizes. They are an ongoing series of paintings that Hirst has made, simply because he felt like doing them.

Hirst has commented about the style being robotic like. When asked why he produced this series of paintings he struggles to give a short sharp answer, as many artists will know, there are some paintings you can describe and some you cant. This is one that you cant. 'Some Comfort Gained from the Acceptance of the Inherent Lies in Everything' 1996 This has to be one of the most shocking yet interesting pieces of artwork Hirst has ever produced.

On first impressions you may look at this piece and think 'A cow cut into section and placed into formaldehyde containers, what's so great about that?' but on closer inspection you will realise that it is actually two cows sliced and placed not facing each other and not with their backs to each other, but interlocking into each other. One cow is facing west and the other facing east. Hirst has placed each cabinet with the section alternatively, the first cow - one box here, and then the last cow - two Here. It carry's onto until the last cow - one box is facing the first cow - two box. Complicated I know, in simple terms the boxes will run in a sequence of cow one's head facing west and then cow two's rear is facing east and so on until the end. It provokes various thoughts, why has he placed them like this?

Is it because he is trying to portray some kind of relationship between the two cows? The fact that they are not facing each other nor back to back suggests that they might both be uncertain of how they feel about each other. Back to back suggests hostility, and the absence of love, which contrasts to the affectionate face to face pose. Conclusion First impressions of Hirst's work are very shocking, sick and make you ask loads of questions, 'Why did he do it?' 'What made him do it?' But you " ll find that if you research below the exterior impression you will find the answers to most of questions.

It is definitely an acquired taste and is not liked by everyone, especially vegetarians. What you have to remember is that art can be anything and everything and although his work is extremely shocking it is also very thought provoking and interesting, you are draw to it in a very surreal way. Being able to look inside a cow and see everything that it is made up of is very strange yet interesting. Hirst did not kill these animals for art, they were killed for various reasons such as disease and they would only of been burned as there bodies would have been rendered useless, even for dog food.

So you " ve got to ask yourself 'what is the harm in it?' If they were killed purposely for the piece then you would have an argument, but Hirst is just using a found object and turning it into a piece of art just like thousand of other artists do. All in all Hirst is a very controversial artist and displays many emotions though out his work, sadness, elegance, and power. He is what I would call one of the greatest artists of his time..