Review

Fashioned from butterfly wings and household paint, Damien Hirst's "Psalm" paintings combine the dizzying symmetry of a kaleidoscope with the radiant beauty of a rose window. Created in 2008, the full series now appears in a new book, The Complete Psalm Paintings. Each of the 150 works is printed opposite the psalm it's named after, the biblical texts superimposed on swirling backdrops of veined marble. The result is a gloriously eccentric take on the age-old tradition of the illuminated manuscript. -- Julie Coe * Architectural Digest *

Long Description

Hirst's Psalm paintings allude to Gothic stained glass windows and the circular patterns of Buddhist mandalas This beautifully illustrated book constitutes a comprehensive survey of Damien Hirst's Psalm paintings. The 150 works in the series are made up of iridescent butterfly wings and paint on canvas, which combine to form kaleidoscopic patterns reminiscent of Gothic stained glass windows. Dating from 2008, the paintings address some of Hirst's most enduring and important themes: beauty, art, belief, life and death. Each of the fully illustrated paintings is accompanied by the Old Testament prayer from which its title is derived, the text rendered on images of individually selected marble samples. Also included is a complete list of works, and essays by art writers Michael Bracewell and Amie Corry. In his essay, Bracewell writes: "The Psalm paintings can't help but bring together, in literal form, such fundamental concepts as beauty, and power over death through prayer and belief, while simultaneously seeming to propose solely their own--albeit spectacular--abstraction. As they take their place within the greater canon of Hirst's art, these paintings extend his fascination with natural history and the potentially synonymous relationships between life, death, art and 'beauty,' and the language of Christian faith and religion." The Complete Psalm Paintings is an exquisite companion to one of Hirst's most beautiful series.Damien Hirst was born in Bristol in 1965. He first came to public attention in 1988 when he conceived and curated Freeze, an exhibition of his own work and that of his contemporaries staged in an abandoned London warehouse. Since then Hirst has become widely recognized as one of the most influential artists of his generation. Alongside over 80 solo exhibitions, he has worked on numerous curatorial projects. In 2008, Hirst took the unprecedented step of bypassing gallery involvement by selling 244 new works at a Sotheby's, London auction. He was awarded the Turner Prize in 1995 and received a major solo retrospective at Tate Modern, London. He lives in Devon, England.

Review Quote

Fashioned from butterfly wings and household paint, Damien Hirst's "Psalm" paintings combine the dizzying symmetry of a kaleidoscope with the radiant beauty of a rose window. Created in 2008, the full series now appears in a new book, The Complete Psalm Paintings. Each of the 150 works is printed opposite the psalm it's named after, the biblical texts superimposed on swirling backdrops of veined marble. The result is a gloriously eccentric take on the age-old tradition of the illuminated manuscript.

Details