Gritti – H5-1

Damien Hirst’s visually entrancing facsimile print ‘Gritti’ (2018) is speckled with exceedingly playful spots. A superb diasec-mounted giclée print on aluminium panel after an original painting, ‘Gritti’ is part of Hirst’s ‘Colour Space’ series from 2016, which builds on the logic of his ‘Spots’. Gone are the iconic grids, replaced by a randomness of movement, colour and even splattering paint to enliven the once strictly arranged spots.

Against a white background, vibrant hues of red, orange, green, blue, purple, yellow and pink spots are congested, touching and overlapping to cover the near entirety of the present picture plane. The occasional splatter adds an additional air of vitality, emphasising the dynamic nature of the work.

The spots in ‘Gritti’ appear to float in space and total to seemingly infinite numbers as they push past the picture plane, effectively establishing connections to atoms under a microscope. Similarly reverberating with energy, the spots construct a work that seems suspended in a constant state of transformation. Viewing the work as a whole, the spots play tricks on the eyes, appearing almost like pixilations as their colours unintentionally assemble into captivating swirling and circular patterns.