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Damien Hirst, H9-1 Justice, 2021
$15,750.00
Laminated Giclée print on aluminum composite panel
47.25 x 37.75 in | 120 x 96 cm
Ed of 1005
Named for the first of Nitobe Inazō’s Eight Virtues of Bushidō, the Samurai code of ethics, Damien Hirst’s ‘Justice’ is a tactile and beautiful celebration of colour. Produced in 2021 as the first print in Hirst’s ‘The Virtues’ (H9) series, each work captures a “garish, messy and fragile” detail from one of his monumental ‘Cherry Blossoms’ (2018-20) canvases.
Playing on the idea of the possibilities and limits of human perception, ‘Justice’ reveals a recognisable section of a ‘Cherry Blossoms’ canvas, insinuating that viewers are seeing the tree through a window or perhaps from inside the tree itself. It captures against a deep blue background thick, white spots and rainbow of “flashes” of paint climbing up the sprawling tree branches. The bubble gum-like petals cover only portions of the tree, the naked branches evocative of petals that have already fallen, anticipating more to shortly follow suit.
‘Justice’, an expressionistic image which oscillates between abstraction and figuration, conveys along the way Hirst’s perennial interest in the notions of life and death through the transient cherry blossom. However, the print appears more vital than morbid, celebrating the possibilities of vibrant, sensuous colour.