Damien Hirst

‘Enter the Infinite – Ecstasy’ is an extraordinarily dynamic tapestry. A thin blue cross emerges from the centre, complimented with details of red, yellow and green and surrounded by glowing fields of yellow. Using a careful mathematical process, an original ‘Spin Painting’ from 2008 is divided, reflected and repeated.  

Such exactness nonetheless produces sporadic visual reactions. ‘Enter the Infinite – Ecstasy’ takes the eye on an uneasy journey quickly into and immediately out of the work’s centre. Along the way, the patterns of colours apparently overwhelm the eye which cannot contain the shifting perspectives of motion, constituting a reflection on its limits and functions. 

Hirst’s experimentations with the eye are also present in the medium. The tapestry is produced using a limited selection of colours which the eye optically blends. Given the medium’s age-old associations with notions like belief and spectacle, Hirst’s choice to produce ‘Enter the Infinite – Ecstasy’ as a tapestry also marks a further development of his own ongoing interventions with these themes.  

‘Enter the Infinite – Ecstasy’ is visually arresting as it captures the intense motion of the spinning technology and the mechanised jacquard-weaving process in a moment of stasis. Motion, expanded and emphasised, defines the image’s unequivocally awe-inspiring form and composition.  

Enter the Infinite - Ecstasy

Enter the Infinite

‘Enter the Infinite – Ecstasy’ is an extraordinarily dynamic tapestry. A thin blue cross emerges from the centre, complimented with details of red, yellow and green and surrounded by glowing fields of yellow. Using a careful mathematical process, an original ‘Spin Painting’ from 2008 is divided, reflected and repeated.  