Weng Contemporary – Damien Hirst, “Deckchairs” (Red; Blue; Yellow; Orange), 2008

Damien Hirst’s Deckchairs – available in red, blue, yellow, and orange – playfully utilize one of the artist’s familiar motifs: a monochromatic background interrupted by a scattering of butterflies, a theme that the artist first introduced into his work after seeing flies get stuck on primed canvases in his studio. The artist sees the butterflies ‘stuck’ to his monochrome canvases as metaphors for the unforeseen interruptions in life—happy accidents, in this case. For the artist, the appeal of butterflies is created largely by the appearance of life they retain in death. They symbolize regeneration, fortune and freedom in a world characterized by a materialistic consumerism that despite all glorification of money and what it can buy always longs for a deeper meaning behind the surfaces – and which yet can never truly get behind those surfaces; longing for spirituality and transcendence and yet always doomed to accept that there might be nothing behind the polished images.
“ I have always liked that idea of something going wrong and something being created from it. „

—Damien Hirst