Damien Hirst Quotes about Art

Damien Hirst is a popular British conceptual artist and was part of the YBO or Young British Artists group. He’s one of the richest artists alive. His 2 day Sotheby’s art auction of 218 works called “Beautiful Inside My Head Forever” raised $198 million USD in 2008. He produces paintings, sculpture, installations, and prints. Famous Damien Hirst artworks include “Pharmacy”, “The Golden Calf”, “For the Love of God”, and “The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living”.

Mini biography: Born Damien Steven Brennan on the 7th of June, 1965 in Bristol, England, United Kingdom of Great Britain. Damien Hirst has three children with Maia Norman: Connor Ojala, Cassius Atticus and Cyrus Joe.

Check out these books on Damien Hirst: “Damien Hirst: New Religion“, “Damien Hirst: Colour Space: The Complete Works“, and “For the Love of God: The Making of the Diamon Skull“.

Damien Hirst Art Quotes

I just wanted to find out where the boundaries were. I’ve found out there aren’t any. I wanted to be stopped but no one will stop me. Damien Hirst

I love color. I feel it inside me. It gives me a buzz. Damien Hirst

As an artist you’re looking for universal triggers. You want it both ways. You want it to have an immediate impact, and you want it to have deep meanings as well. I’m striving for both. But I hate it when people write things that sound like they’ve swallowed a fucking dictionary. Damien Hirst

I was brought up a Catholic, but I don’t believe in God. I think I’m an atheist. Hardcore atheist. I’m trying to be a hardcore atheist, and then I keep making work like this. Damien Hirst

I was taught to confront things you can’t avoid. Death is one of those things. To live in a society where you’re trying not to look at it is stupid because looking at death throws us back into life with more vigour and energy. The fact that flowers don’t last for ever makes them beautiful. Damien Hirst

It’s shit to go on the wall at the end of the day. You’re decorating apartments a lot of the time; it’s something to go over the sofa. Damien Hirst

There are two things in an artwork, aren’t there? There’s a visual thing and there’s a cerebral thing; there’s a mind thing and an eye thing going on. And the mind thing is always secondary; no matter how great or important conceptual art is, at the end of the day, it’s secondary to the eye thing. If it looks fucking good on the wall, none of that matters; it’s really not important. Damien Hirst

I did a load of medicine cabinets a long time ago and I named them after Sex Pistols songs. I suppose I must be getting old if I’m naming work after Philip Larkin poems. Damien Hirst

I keep thinking about Goya and Soutine, and I sort of imagine that at the end of my life I’ll just fucking paint. I’ll be fucking sat in a tiny little room with one light bulb doing self-portraits on my own. There’s a lot of complications with what I do now. You have to be young, you have to be fit, to run the operation that I run, and I certainly don’t think I can get old running an operation like this. Damien Hirst

I believe all painting and art should be uplifting for the viewer. Damien Hirst

The idea of replacing the shark is a bit of a difficult one. The original shark was done badly – that’s the problem. With the other ones, you probably won’t replace them. Everything is replaceable in my mind, but then, I’m not the person who’s going to decide that, because it happens when you’re gone. But I feel pretty bad about the way the shark was looking, because it’s deteriorated. Damien Hirst

I think art is good at looking back and looking forward. I don’t think art is good at looking head-on. At the end of the day, people are more important than paintings. Damien Hirst

As an artist, you make a comment about what it is to be alive today. Van Gogh can’t do that because he’s dead. Damien Hirst

Great art – or good art – is when you look at it, experience it and it stays in your mind. I don’t think conceptual art and traditional art are all that different. There’s boring conceptual art and there’s boring traditional art. Great art is if you can’t stop thinking about it, then it becomes a memory. Damien Hirst

Painting is so poetic, while sculpture is more logical and scientific and makes you worry about gravity. Damien Hirst

I mean, religion is serious shit, isn’t it? We’re all trying to find our way through the darkness in our lives. Religion can be one part of that. For me, I like a bit of everything: a bit of art, science and religion. Damien Hirst

Warhol’s great. You can’t argue with it. It’s simple, isn’t it? And visually great. It’s easy, cheap, simple. He certainly doesn’t over-complicate things. I think that’s good. Damien Hirst

I think money is important for everyone, because the lack of it is so painful. I worked very hard to make sure that money was not my goal but a by-product of what I was doing. I had a very good manager who told me to use the money to chase the art, rather than the art to chase the money. Damien Hirst

It works much better than I imagined. I was slightly worried that we’d end up with an Ali G ring. (Hirst talking about his diamond skull work) Damien Hirst

More on British Artist Damien Hirst

How has Damien Hirst influenced your art making? Is he a talented artist or just a good marketer? Does it matter if he paints his own dot paintings and why? Let us know what you think about Damien Hirst in the comments below.

For more on the famous British artist here’s three excellent Damien Hirst books: “Damien Hirst: New Religion“, “Damien Hirst: Colour Space: The Complete Works“, and “For the Love of God: The Making of the Diamon Skull“.