Damien Hirst - Love Exhibition

After ArtLoveRes heard there was an Art exhibition focusing on Damien Hirst and that we still had a day or so to check it out we were thankful and excited to check it out.

The exhibition which ran from February 9th-21st displayed some of Damien Hirsts work revolving around 'Love' which is the the title of the exhibition.

Damien is well known for exploring the notion of death, something that he has admiitted to openly hating. A theme that continues to weave through Hirsts work is repetition or series of works a possible concept of cheating death creating a belief system through repetition; example being addiction, we are always taught that too much of anything will make you sick and moderation is key to a healthy balance in life. Regardless, repetition drones the same thing into us, maybe a little differently or completely the same each time.

Repetition is key to the Love exhibition. Walking through the exhbit, you are presented with numerous love heart shapes in different colours against a white backdrop with intricate butterfly stencilshapes placed in the middle.

As you can see above a number of the works had a particularly nice metallic sheen, because most of our hearts gleam right? ;)

It definitely added a very nice touch, you can see more detail of the butterfly effect below:

Art means different things to different people. We look at Art with our eyes and think about Art using the mind. Looking through Damiens work, to ArtLoveRes it signified Love as an ever evolving thing, something which you can look upon at various different ways but is the same. The butterfly brought the death idea back into play, butterflies transition through different phases and forms and experience ultimately death and rebirth. Could Damien be touching upon Death of life but also rebirth through the form of love?

Whatever meaning you draw from the work, it definitly is aesthetically pleasing. Hirst has been known to display dead animals in previous works. In this exhibition you see an artificial heart pearced with a dart placed inside a water filled glass container. This conjured up feelings of obvious heart break but the materials used are materials Hirst has admitted to being his favourites; water first then glass. A sort of barrier to close off from the outside world but also letting people marvel at whats inside. Every angle you look at can change but it's the same thing over and over a theme of repetition coming into play again.