Damien Hirst, H6-8 Fire, 2020

Diasec-mounted Giclée print on aluminum composite panel

39.5 x 39.5 in | 100 x 100 cm

Ed of 60

Celebrated in historical myths from Prometheus to Moses, fire is an element held at the very heart of the human condition; it is a symbol of creativity and destruction, energy and power, passion and anger. Fire destroys indiscriminately and forges new life from the ashes. This concept of rebirth has long been explored by Damien Hirst through the motif of the butterfly, and is presented in ‘Fire’ from his ‘The Elements’ (H6, 2020) series in a chaotic explosion of energy and light.

In Hirst’s pictorial visualisation of the element of fire, the pattern and colour palette of the print reflect its namesake element. ‘Fire’, constructed around a single plane of symmetry at the centre of the image, features strong yellow, black and bright orange colours that burst diagonally in opposite directions from the bottom of the image, as if two flames captured in their brief moment of existence.

Utilising images of butterflies, one of his best-known motifs, through ‘Fire’ Hirst reaches back in time to the beliefs of early medicine in the power of the elements and brought those beliefs into the present day to question our contemporary view of sickness and health, of life and death. For him, butterflies are laden with meaning, extending across time and geography to encompass the ideas such as the very notions of life and death themselves.