Damien Hirst

The collaboration

Damien Hirst and Lalique present Eternal. Conceived by Damien Hirst and handcrafted by Lalique, the “Eternal” collection is a series of sculptures and panels rendered in exquisite crystal. Time stands still; life and beauty, death and chaos are frozen in crystal. They are themes that have remained central to Hirst’s work since the late 1980s. Sleep depicts a human skull, a reminder of the inexorable passage of time, whilst Truth presents a dove carrying an olive branch. Belief features a constellation of coloured capsules inserted into a cross; Sinner illustrates the sinuous curve of a serpent in a triptych of panels. Cross slices with open scissors, Immaculate depicts a dagger through a heart in flight.

Damien Hirst was born in 1965 in Bristol and grew up in Leeds. In 1984 he moved to London, where he worked in construction before studying for a BA in Fine Art at Goldsmiths college from 1986 to 1989. Whilst in his second year, he conceived and curated a group exhibition entitled ‘Freeze’. The show is commonly acknowledged to have been the launching point for Hirst and for a generation of British artists. Since the late 1980s, Hirst has used varied practices to explore the complex relationships between art, life and death, explaining: “Art’s about life and it can’t really be about anything else … there isn’t anything else.” Through work, he investigates and challenges contemporary belief systems, and dissects the uncertainties at the heart of human experience. Since 1987, over 90 solo Damien Hirst exhibitions have taken place worldwide, and his work has been included in over 260 group shows. He was awarded the Turner Prize in 1995.

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