Sunday 11 March 2012

Dotty over spots

When the Jomojo threw our ”circles” yet again I was going to ”re-roll” but fate intervened. When I'd been given the topic of circles last week one of the images I'd immediately thought of was Damien Hirst’s infamous and dare say iconic spot paintings, or to be more correct, his controlled substance series. On a memorable visit to the original Saatchi gallery they had featured prominently and a spot emblazoned mini had been pride of place in the entrance (though Damien himself got into a row about it being art). We'd also discovered that when taking the water taxi to the Tate Modern whilst doing a little art gallery crawl, it had also been spotified. I was delighted to discover one of my clients had a huge original painting in their reception (Biotin-Maleimide) so I get to visit it regularly. It has always appealed to my aesthetics, despite the furore concerning whether they are art or whether they were or not actually painted by Damien’s assistants (it's safe to say the vast majority were). I think the combination of the pleasing lines, coupled with circles and the punches of colour just work. I know so many art critics cringe at this series as they bemoan the commerciality and consider it just too crowd pleasing and certainly not high-end art. I just know that I adore eating in Michelin-starred restaurants but also occasionally plump for an M&S ready meal.

So with all that said when I opened my Observer this today and realised the double page spread of the review section was this exact picture, circles won the day.

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