The Empresses Full Set of 5
Condition reports and provenance available upon request
About This Work
Damien Hirst’s *The Empresses (Full Set of 5)* brings the artist’s hallmark fusion of spectacle and systems into a cohesive, museum-calibre suite. Each print pairs radiant, symmetrically orchestrated colour fields with the iconic butterfly motif—at once seductively decorative and conceptually charged—where beauty is inseparable from mortality, transformation, and the ethics of looking. Hirst’s meticulous screenprint technique and high-key palette lend the works a jewel-like surface, echoing both scientific taxonomy and the opulence suggested by their imperial titles. Read together, the set functions as a contemporary vanitas and a meditation on image culture, positioning Hirst within a lineage from Pop to post-conceptual practice while remaining unmistakably of our moment.
About the Artist
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. He was awarded the Turner Prize in 1995. Since the late 1980’s, Hirst has used a varied practise of...
View Full Artist Profile →Zebra One Gallery
Contemporary Art • Hampstead, London
Established 1976 • 50 years of excellence in contemporary art • Professional authentication and provenance research