Damien Hirst, H9-3 Mercy, 2021

Laminated Giclée print on aluminum composite panel

47.25 x 37.75 in | 120 x 96 cm

Ed of 817

Damien Hirst’s ‘Mercy’ evokes the artist’s characterisation of his ‘Cherry Blossoms’ (2018-20) painting series as “garish, messy and fragile”. The third work from his ‘The Virtues’ (H9, 2021) print series, ‘Mercy’ is named for the tender third virtue of Bushidō, the Samurai code of ethics. As described by Nitobe Inazō, Mercy is “the feeling of distress, love, magnanimity, affection for others, sympathy and pity”.

Hirst’s ‘Mercy’ fixates on a single passage from one of his monumental ‘Cherry Blossoms’ canvases, scaling it down to offer viewers an intimate look into the very details of the image and the artist’s painting practice. Indeed, it also constitutes an investigation into the limits and possibilities of human perception: it insinuates that viewers are perhaps seeing the composition through a window or from inside the tree itself.

Set against a light blue background, white spots, constructed through heavy, tactile impasto, crawl across the branches, joined by “flashes” of other colours like pinks, blues and yellows. Painted with a distinct vitality, ‘Mercy’ appears to oscillate between abstraction and figuration, life and death. While the petals are reminiscent of Abstract Expressionist action, the tree branches are much truer to their natural form, and indeed while petals are portrayed falling to the ground, alluding to the transient nature of the blossom, the bubble gum-like, sensuous and vibrantly coloured petals undeniably evoke joy and vitality.