The Souls IV - Imperial Purple/Oriental Gold, 2010

Damien Hirst, one of the most influential figures in contemporary art, is widely recognized for his exploration of themes such as life, death, beauty, and the spiritual. Emerging as a leader of the Young British Artists in the late 1980s and 1990s, Hirst has consistently challenged the boundaries between fine art and commercialism. His work often employs bold visual language and industrial materials to address existential questions, whether through preserved animals, pharmaceutical motifs, or highly polished, mass-produced prints. Hirst’s use of repetition, vibrant color, and symbolic imagery allows his work to exist simultaneously as aesthetic object and philosophical inquiry.

In The Souls IV – Imperial Purple/Oriental Gold (2010), Hirst returns to the motif of the butterfly, a symbol he has used extensively to evoke transformation, fragility, and the soul’s transcendence. This editioned work features a meticulously rendered butterfly in radiant imperial purple foil set against oriental gold accents, printed on luxurious 300gsm Arches 88 archival paper. With a limited run of just 15, the piece underscores Hirst’s interest in the spiritual and symbolic dimensions of nature, presented through the lens of opulence and precision. The butterfly, often associated with resurrection and ephemerality, becomes a timeless icon under Hirst’s hand—elevated through rich color and metallic finish into a meditation on mortality and the sublime.