Damien Hirst, H9-5 Honesty, 2021

Laminated Giclée print on aluminum composite panel

47.25 x 37.75 in | 120 x 96 cm

Ed of 728

Named for the fifth of Nitobe Inazō’s Eight Virtues of Bushidō, the Samurai code of ethics, Damien Hirst’s ‘Honesty’ is a tactile and beautiful celebration of colour. Produced in 2021 as the first print in Hirst’s ‘The Virtues’ series, each work captures a “garish, messy and fragile” detail from one of his monumental canvases from his ‘Cherry Blossoms’ (2018-20) series.

Playing on the idea of the possibilities and limits of human perception, ‘Honesty’ reveals a recognisable section of a ‘Cherry Blossoms’ canvas, insinuating that viewers are seeing the composition through a window or perhaps from inside the tree itself. It captures against a light blue background, an avalanche of thick, white spots interrupted by a rainbow of “flashes” of paint which climb up the sprawling tree branches. The bubble gum-like petals cover only portions of the tree, at times falling to reveal the naked branches, evoking petals that have already fallen and anticipating more to shortly follow suit.

‘Honesty’, 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.