Damien Hirst, "Cathedral Print - Duomo", 2007

Silkscreen with glaze and pearlised colors
120 × 120 cm
(47.2 × 47.2 in)
Hand-signed by Damien Hirst
Numbered
Edition of 50

In Excellent conditions.

Accompanied by Certificate of Authenticity.

Cathedral Print, Duomo is a silkscreen with glaze and pearlised colours. Modelled after Hirst’s Superstition paintings of 2006, these radiating compositions of meticulously arranged butterfly wings create intricate patterns of dazzling shapes and colours that evoke the rose windows of Gothic cathedrals or the tesserae of Byzantine mosaics. By allying the fragility of the butterfly wings with the monumentality of religious art, these prints engage the big existential themes – nature, life, religion – that have defined Hirst’s career.​

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Hirst began using butterflies in his work as early as 1989. Describing the insect as a ‘universal trigger’, he has explained: “Everyone’s frightened of glass, everyone’s frightened of sharks, everyone loves butterflies.” The ‘Cathedrals’ are part of the ‘Kaleidoscope’ series, conceived by the artist in 2001 after he found a Victorian tea tray decorated with intricate patterns of butterfly wings. The works reference the spiritual symbolism of the butterfly, used by the Greeks to depict Psyche, the soul, and in Christian imagery to signify the resurrection. The perfect symmetry alludes to both the displays of light, colour and beauty as presented in Gothic stained glass windows, and the circular patterns of Buddhist mandalas. The paintings, which are rendered on uniformly sized circular, square or diamond-shaped canvases, might variously be interpreted as explorations into the nature of beauty, religion, death and the fragility of life.​