Hommage an Bonnard

Damien Hirst gewährt ersten Blick auf seine neue Malerei

Für eine neue Serie von Gemälden hat sich der britische Künstler Damien Hirst vom Post-Impressionismus des französischen Malers Pierre Bonnard inspirieren lassen

"Ich habe Bonnard und seine Farben immer geliebt", schreibt Hirst auf Instagram, wo er erste Einblicke in den Entstehungsprozess der neuen Arbeiten gibt. "Als Student habe ich einmal eine Ausstellung von de Kooning und Bonnard im Centre Pompidou besucht und beide Künstler haben mich umgehauen."

Ive always loved Bonnard and his colour, i went to see a show at the Pompidou in Paris of de Kooning and Bonnard when I was a student and both artists blew me away. These paintings Ive made, which im calling the Veil paintings, will be shown at Gagosian LA in March. . . Theyre like big abstract Bonnard paintings, Ive been playing with the scale and the big ones feel perfect. how can you not love colour? Sunlight on flowers, fuck everything else . . #veilpaintings #colour @gagosiangallery

A post shared by Damien Hirst (@damienhirst) on Jan 31, 2018 at 9:42am PST

Hirst selbst beschreibt die großformatigen, im Stil des Pointillismus gemalten Bilder als "große abstrakte Bonnard-Gemälde". Mit ihren bunten Farbtupfen lassen die Bilder an Hirsts bekannte "Spot Paintings" denken.

My first ever Spot Painting [1986] was loose and painted with drippy paint, not minimal at all. In that first painting, I was wrestling with what I originally thought of as the coldness of Minimalism and the more emotional, abstract expressionist painting style Id grown up with. At the time I painted it, it felt uncool and I abandoned it immediately for the rigidity of the grid, removing the mess, but after doing the Spot catalogue raisonn Ive felt really drawn to that first painting and knew Id revisit it eventually maybe its because Im getting older. I realised I was wrong about Minimalism the simplest, cleanest thing can provoke an emotional response but the Spot Paintings still play with that idea; despite the grid they always look happy, although theres an unease there too because the colours dont repeat when you expect them to. I originally wanted the Spots to look like they were painted by a human trying to paint like a machine. Colour Space is going back to the human element, so instead you have the fallibility of the human hand in the drips and inconsistencies. There are still no two exact colours that repeat in each painting, which is really important to me. I think of them as cells under a microscope. It felt right to show them somewhere historic rather than in a conventional gallery space and Houghtons perfect. It feels totally right. #ColourSpace #HoughtonHall

A post shared by Damien Hirst (@damienhirst) on Jan 9, 2018 at 3:58am PST

Unter dem Titel "The Veil paintings" sind die Bilder ab dem 1. März in der Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills zu sehen.