Name: The Cure (iris blue, chalk green, charm pink)
Brand: Damien Hirst
Rating: 4.9 (183 reviews)

Meaning & Analysis

The Cure (iris blue, chalk green, charm pink) is a silkscreen print by critically acclaimed artist, Damien Hirst. The print produced in 2014 and printed on Somerset Tub is of a large two-colour pill. The pill is rendered by Hirst in chalk green and charm pink against an iris blue backdrop. The bold and vibrant colours Hirst uses in this print resonate with the Pop Art style popularised by Andy Warhol in the 1960s. Warhol was a clear influence on Hirst and Hirst’s printing technique and the repetition throughout his works are traces of the profound impact Warhol had on Hirst’s own visual language and artistic career.

read more about The Cure

The Cure (iris blue, chalk green, charm pink) is one of thirty silkscreen prints that compose Hirst’s The Cure series. In this series, Hirst renders a singular pill in a combination of two colour tones against a bold and vibrant coloured backdrop. The series is based on the minimalist aesthetic of the medicinal pill. Hirst has a long-standing interest in medicine and pharmaceuticals, an area he explored while studying Fire Art at Goldsmiths in the 1980s. In his Eat the Rich series, produced later in 2017, Hirst further develops this interest by depicting tablet boxes and pharmaceutical packaging, instead of simply focussing on the pharmaceutical products themselves, as he does in The Cure series.

The Cure (iris blue, chalk green, charm pink) reflects Hirst’s fascination with science, modern medicine and the pharmaceutical industry. Life and death are themes that are often explored in Hirst’s work which are intricately linked to his obsession with medicine and depicting it in his art.