Damien Hirst
Damien Hirst
Damien Steven Hirstis an English artist, entrepreneur, and art collector. He is the most prominent member of the group known as the Young British Artists, who dominated the art scene in the UK during the 1990s. He is internationally renowned, and is reportedly the United Kingdom's richest living artist, with his wealth valued at £215m in the 2010 Sunday Times Rich List. During the 1990s his career was closely linked with the collector Charles Saatchi, but increasing frictions came to...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionPainter
Date of Birth7 June 1965
You've really got to get down on the floor with yourself and get low in order to make great art. I think you've just got to accept who you are and do the most unbelievable things.
You've got to be oblivious to other people, the push and pull of other people's opinions, the way other people measure success. It's then that you realize you are 100 percent who you are and you have to use that who-you-are 100 percent in order to create great things.
It's amazing what you can do with an E in A-level art, twisted imagination and a chainsaw.
To me it's like, this is the kind of world I live in and these are all the people who are artists who are doing what I'm doing, but in their own way.
I've seen things that are 200 years old, in formaldehyde.
Anything you can do with your hands and feet. Great.
One thing leads to another with my work.
She wasn't much to look at, but she was great to dance with.
I have a Californian girlfriend and she's into a lot of Californian bands so I listen to that.
I like the confusion you get between science and religion … that’s where belief lies and art as well.
I love color. I feel it inside me. It gives me a buzz.
Being best is a false goal, you have to measure success on your own terms.
So smoking is the perfect way to commit suicide without actually dying. I smoke because it's bad, it's really simple.
If the choice is between buying another building or a Pollock, I'd go for the Pollock every time.