Sans Souci – H4-1

‘Sans Souci’ (2018) is a visually entrancing facsimile print born out of Damien Hirst’s critically acclaimed ‘Veil Paintings’ series (2017). Across the series, Hirst employed a Pointillism-like technique to overlap seemingly endless layers of synthetic, Bonnard-like colour to create works that act as solid, yet invisible barriers.  

A great lover of colour and the joy that it can create, Hirst used hand-mixed paints akin to ‘sweet shop colours and the colours of fruit and flowers’. Pink, red and orange hues dominate ‘Sans Souci’, accented on top by spurts of white and below by yellow, green and blue. Though entirely abstract, this layering gives the work a pronounced sense of depth, forming another enticing dimension of colour.  

This sense of depth is also created through Hirst’s mature use of thick impasto, no longer evenly applying his paint but allowing it to splatter and pile up in an almost Pollock-like fashion. The result is an undeniable sense of energy and life that is successfully captured in the present diasec-mounted giclée print on aluminium panel. This high-quality facsimile print creates the illusion of impasto paint, capturing not only the sensibility of the original painting but also creating another layer in Hirst’s veil.