Beneficence

Damien Hirst’s intimate giclée print ‘Beneficence’ from 2015 presents a remarkable kaleidoscopic grid of images of butterfly wings. Inspired by the artist’s eponymous work on paper from 2008, ‘Beneficence’ depicts warmly coloured butterfly wings against a bubble gum pink background, producing an entirely joyful print.

Hirst’s designs featuring butterflies laid out in expansive geometric grids often incorporate images of thousands of individual wings, forming distinctly complex compositions. However, the present work takes a more intimate approach to this format. By rendering the wings in a smaller, more delicate composition, ‘Beneficence’ focuses on the individual wings to highlight the essential beauty that arises from simplicity of form, colour and its evocation of nature.

Attracted to butterflies for the diverse concepts they symbolise such as of freedom, beauty, life and death, ‘Beneficence’ seems to embrace beauty and life particularly. On the repeated appearance of the butterfly motif throughout his oeuvre, Hirst explains: ‘I think rather than be personal you have to find universal triggers: everyone’s frightened of glass, everyone’s frightened of sharks, everyone loves butterflies’.