The Dead (loganberry pink, lime green)
The Dead (loganberry pink, lime green)
Signed Print
Damien Hirst
Foil Block, 2014
Signed Print Edition of 15
Critical Review
The Dead (loganberry pink, lime green) is a signed foil block print in colours, on Arches paper produced by renowned contemporary artist, Damien Hirst. In this print, Hirst depicts a skull which floats in the centre of the composition. The skull is rendered in a bold loganberry pink with bright lime green touches against a plain, white backdrop.
The print, made in 2009, is part of the artist’s The Dead series. The series, composed of thirty-one prints, takes death as its central theme. Each print in the series shows a skull, however the difference lies in the unique combination of colours Hirst uses in the prints. The skull, as representative of death, is a motif that runs throughout Hirst’s oeuvre. Hirst uses images of skulls in other series such as I Once Was What You Are, You Will Be What I Am (2007) and Memento (2008). The artist also attracted great attention and critical acclaim for his work For the Love of God, a sculpture made in 2007 which consisted of a platinum cast of an 18th-century human skull encrusted with 8,601 flawless diamonds
Hirst has been referred to as ‘an everyman’s existentialist’ due to his obsession with exploring questions of life and death in his artworks. As well as depicting skulls, a universally recognised symbol representing death, Hirst also incorporates pharmaceutical products and dead insects into his artworks to further investigate questions of life and death through art.
