Damien Hirst Oleoylsarcosine For Sale

Oleoylsarcosine is a series of etchings created by the artist in 2008. Each of the one hundred editions of the series is unique, in accordance with the expansive nature of Hirst’s Spots series, for which the artist’s name has become synonymous. Since 1986, Hirst has created over a thousand spot paintings, finding seemingly infinite inspiration in the purity of colour and minimalism, marrying the fields of art and science in his systematic method. Whilst the spots of The Pharmaceutical Paintings were painted by hand, through the medium of printmaking Oleoylsarcosine mimics the 'factory process’ underpinning the spot paintings – pharmaceutical chemicals, produced to preserve health and beauty, which point to the human striving for perfection. Indeed Oleoylsarcosine takes its title from an emulsifier used in skincare products. 

A most recognisable feature of Hirst’s spot works is his grid arrangements, allowing the eye to focus solely on the spectrum of colours that either leap or descend into the always-white background. The present series of etchings features rows of six by nine, showcasing a large proportion of dots in close proximity. Blues, greens, reds and yellows repeat but never in the same tone or in a predictive pattern, a form of visual trickery which the artist delights in. Mario Codognato states of this unsettling effect: ‘Chromatic heterogeneity generates a liminal and anxious disharmony, further reinforced by the infinite range of possible combinations in the composition.’ For Hirst, this discomfort is counterbalanced by the freedom and joy found in the primacy of colour against formal aspects of the artwork: ‘I’ve always had a phenomenal love of colour.. I mean I just move colour around on its own. So that’s where the spot paintings came from – to create that structure to do those colours, and do nothing’. 

Simultaneously clinical and emotive, formulaic yet unique, Oleoylsarcosine and his wider spot series have undoubtedly become canonical in contemporary art. They also mark an important foray into minimalism for Hirst: ‘I realised I was wrong about minimalism – the simplest, cleanest thing an provoke an emotional response’.