Name: Violence
Brand: Damien Hirst
Rating: 4.9 (184 reviews)

Meaning & Analysis

Violence is a silkscreen print by contemporary artist, Damien Hirst. In this print, produced in 2017, Hirst renders the packaging of a pharmaceutical product against a plain backdrop. The design of the packaging is simple and conventional, contrasting with some of the other prints in the Eat The Rich series which have more unusual and colourful designs. White dominates the composition, with touches of blue around the edges of the tablet packet. A clear, black font is used to detail the contents of the tablet packet. Hirst comically substitutes the pharmaceutical company’s name with his own surname, blurring the boundaries between science and art, artist and pharmacist.

read more about Eat The Rich

Violence is one of twelve prints that compose the Eat The Rich series. In this series, Hirst appropriates pharmaceutical packaging, creating his own pharmaceutical products. In each print, Hirst uses precise scientific detail, listing the ingredients of the tablets, making it hard for the viewer to distinguish between real medical products and those depicted in these prints. As seen in Violence, in every print in the series, the name of the tablet is replaced by a powerful word that carries connotations of force or aggression.

The scientific precision of the print’s composition reflects Hirst’s keen interest in medicine. The artist created a series of works in the 1980s inspired by medicine cabinets. Hirst was fascinated by the interaction between the human body and modern medicine. Like the Medicine Cabinet series, Eat The Rich similarly explores themes of life and death, myth and medicine.