A collection of Damien Hirst’s coastal landscape inspired paintings have gone on public display in central London for the first time.
The often very large canvases make up three series of works, Coast Paintings, Sea Paintings, and Seascapes, veering from the photo-realistic to very abstract, and are inspired by his walks along the coastline where he lives today and where he went on holiday as a child.
It’s a collection that stems from a frenetic 2019, when the Hirst studio produced nearly 170 paintings, almost at the same time as he was working on his Cherry Blossom range. He says in the accompanying catalogues that he found himself looking at the floor at times while painting, and thinking that in some areas his paint-splattered floor looked better than his paintings, he covered the floor in dark grey canvas and returned to painting.
Later, the floor sheets were lifted, and they reminded him of a typical British summer at the sea — namely grey and cold.
And thus the current series was born.
The large open gallery at Phillips, usually home to objects being sold by auction has been taken over by the Damien Hirst collection, with a series of paintings ranging from domestic scale right up to vast canvases that fill the double-height gallery.
The photo-realistic paintings do look like large photos blown up and printed onto canvas but are in fact paintings in their own right. Always in monochrome, they capture the dramatic nature of the sea in action on stormy days.
A number of the paintings have then been given a new layer, a second life, after being added to by the artist with thick dollops of paint that add colour to the greyscapes below and in a way add a three-dimensional depth to the photographs that inspired the painting.
In a gallery filled with mostly monochrome, there’s colour from his other series, the very abstract paintings, which are also based on coastal landscapes.
The scattering of paints looks flat from a distance, but up close and you can appreciate that the artworks are almost landscapes with their own valleys and mountains created by the thick layers of paint that’s been applied. You can’t see it in the exhibition, but each of the abstract paintings has a postcard from the seaside town that inspired it tucked into the back of the frame. So at least the owner knows what the painting is of.
The collection on display, while of the same subjects, can be split fairly evenly between two very different genres, so if one painting doesn’t appeal, turn around, and see something very different instead. It’s fairly unusual for such a large collection of Damien Hirst paintings to go on display for free, so this is a good chance to see them.
The exhibition, Where the Land Meets the Sea is being presented with the support of the artist’s galleries, Gagosian and White Cube and is at Phillips auction house until 18th August 2023
Phillips is on Berkeley Square in Mayfair, and is open Mon to Sat from 10am to 6pm and Sunday 12pm to 6pm.
The exhibition is on two floors, so don’t miss the 1st-floor display as well when visiting.
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