Quotes by Damien Hirst

About Damien Hirst:

Damien Steven Hirst is an English artist, entrepreneur, and art collector. He is the most prominent member of the group known as the Young British Artists (or YBAs), who dominated the art scene in the UK during the 1990s. He is internationally renowned, and is reportedly the United Kingdom's richest living artist, with his wealth valued at £215m in the 2010 Sunday Times Rich List. During the 1990s his career was closely linked with the collector Charles Saatchi, but increasing frictions came to a head in 2003 and the relationship ended.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

I was brought up Catholic, and I felt the power of art from a very young age - seeing the brutality of all those images of flayed apostles and tortured saints was a pretty strong introduction.

Damien Hirst

Kids are naturally gifted at art from a very young age. The problem is when they get older and become self-conscious. The process should always be fun, though.

Damien Hirst

It's amazing what you can do with an E in A-Level art, a twisted imagination and a chainsaw.

Damien Hirst

I always feel like the art's there and I just see it, so it's not really a lot of work.

Damien Hirst

In an artwork you're always looking for artistic decisions, so an ashtray is perfect. An ashtray has got life and death.

Damien Hirst

Great art - or good art - is when you look at it, experience it and it stays in your mind. I don't think conceptual art and traditional art are all that different.

Damien Hirst

People don't like contemporary art, but all art starts life as contemporary - I can't really see a difference.

Damien Hirst

Making art, good art, is always a struggle. It can make you happy when you pull it off. There's no better feeling. It's beauteous. But it's always about hard work and inspiration and sweat and good ideas.

Damien Hirst

For me, art is always a kind of theater.

Damien Hirst

The difference between art about death and actual death is that one's a celebration and the other's a dull fact.

Damien Hirst

For me, art is always a kind of theater. When I started the spot paintings, I made them as an endless series. But I was never serious about it being an endless series. It was just an implied endless series. The theater means you just have to make it ...

Damien Hirst

That's the great thing about art. Anybody can do it if you just believe. With practice, you can make great paintings.

Damien Hirst

I think art is good at looking back and looking forward. I don't think art is good at looking head-on. At the end of the day, people are more important than paintings.

Damien Hirst

Here's one from me: 'You have to be aware that everyone else is thinking far too hard about themselves to be thinking about you, whoever you are.' If you want it, you can have it. Once you know that, you can be free.

Damien Hirst

I remember when you used to have your profession on your passport and I always thought that being a painter was the best one to be, because my heroes were Goya and Francis Bacon.

Damien Hirst

Even as a kid in drawing class, I had real ambition. I wanted to be the best in the class, but there was always some other feller who was better; so I thought, 'It can't be about being the best, it has to be about the drawing itself, what you do with...

Damien Hirst

Being best is a false goal, you have to measure success on your own terms.

Damien Hirst

No, I don't believe in genius. I believe in freedom. I think anyone can do it. Anyone can be like Rembrandt.

Damien Hirst

But I think it's more that when you're young, you're invincible, you're immortal - or at least you think you are. The possibilities are limitless, you're inventing the future. Then you get older and suddenly you have a history. It's fixed. You can't ...

Damien Hirst

I have always been aware that you have to get people listening before you can change their minds. Any artist's big fear is being ignored, so if you get debate, that's great.

Damien Hirst

Author Bio

  • NameDamien Hirst
  • Descriptionartist
  • BornJune 7, 1965
  • CountryUnited Kingdom
  • ProfessionRestaurateur; Painter
  • WorksMickey; The Physical Impossibility Of Death In The Mind Of Someone Living; For The Love Of God
  • AwardsTurner Prize