Forget all about the prevailing scientific truth on the origin of the universe. It started with colour. Deep jungle, army and olive greens; hues of pacific blue; shimmery silver; fiery rose pink and a dark luminous orange in the centre, collectively formed a controlled explosion of colour. Added one by one by its creator onto a table-height square device with a round spinning plate in the middle, each colour experience the gravitational pull and centrifugal force determined by the speed of the spin; flattening, extending the inks into rounded shapes and semi-circle pressure waves, pushing vigorously away from the centre. This is what the beginning of time and colour look like.

Hirst’s experimentation with spin-painting started in ’92 in his South London studio, alongside fellow artist Angus Fairhurst. Both, graduates of the seminal class of ’89 from Goldsmith College of Art, they became trailblazers - amongst other alumni - for their innovative works and persistence to bypass the gatekeepers of the traditional art world; trying to reach out directly to collectors and the media through self-orchestrated events. It was during one such happening, ‘A Fete Worse than Death’, that the concept of the ‘Spin’ painting was introduced to the wondering public strolling the high-street of Shoreditch in East London. Dressed up as clowns, Hirst and Fairhurst, invited passers-by to pick squeeze-bottles containing different colour paint, and add it to a small spinning piece of paper. A collaborative artwork which once completed was signed by the artists and handed to the willing participant in exchange for £1.

The turning point for the ‘Spin’ came in 1994. Living in Berlin at the time, Hirst had a mechanical device created where he easily could spin a canvas, trying out different methods and experimenting with colour combinations. How different hues are perceived by the viewer and the affect adjacent colour have when placed side-by-side, also known as simultaneous contrast, was nothing new to the artist. Although Hirst was never a colour theorist - and more of a “mood-ist”, where colour rather is a catalyst for different feelings, such as love, happiness, envy or fear - his first ‘Spot’-paintings were indeed about portraying hues in their purest form; perfectly presented in circular spots, equally distanced on a white backdrop to minimise interference. In the ‘Spin’ paintings - on the contrary - the blending of colour was inevitable.

Debuting at Bruno Brunett Fine Art in Berlin the same year, the exhibited ‘Spin’s may at first have seemed as a shift in the artist’s practice and taking a leap from the minimalist ‘Spot’ paintings to an outburst of intermingled paint, reminiscent of the works created by the abstract expressionists in the sixties. However, considering himself more of a conceptualist - where the idea behind the works takes precedence over the visual presentation - the ‘Spin’s were a progression of Hirst’s theme of infinite abundance. An input controlled by the artist and mediated by the mechanical device, the outcome would always be guided by an element of chance and leading to a presentation of form, and a combination of colour which is endless. Hirst might have spun the plate and added the colour, but ultimately it was the laws of physics shaping each ‘Spin’, making them ‘beautiful’ on their own merit.

Like a wine connoisseur’s abstract vocabulary that suggests hints of toasted brioche and green apples on the palette, Hirst’s titles for the spin-paintings speak a language of limitless first impressions; ‘Seeing is believing’, ‘hurtling, vortex’ or ‘galactic, exploding’, the latter suggestive of a big bang.

Ten years into his practice, Hirst had created some of the most important concepts that would define the works of his early career; earning him the prestigious Turner Prize in 1995. While the ‘Beautiful spin’ paintings can seem to live a more quiet existence amongst sharks and cows in formaldehyde, butterfly paintings and the ‘Pharmaceutical’ series, the ‘Spin’’s elaborate on the earliest, more abstract, ‘Spot’ paintings from ’86. In that context the ‘Spin’s establish themselves as a series of substance in his practice.

On the thirtieth anniversary of inviting the strollers in East London to spin their own painting, Hirst revisited the ‘Spin’. This time replacing a manual device with an app built on machine-learning, assisting the online public to pick their colour of preference and generate a personal spin. All left to Hirst was to digitally print and sign them.

In 2001, Damien Hirst extended the ‘Spin’ series beyond canvas and created Beautiful, Galactic, Exploding Screenprint. A title that included it into the series of unique paintings where each work starts with ‘beautiful’ and ends with the medium. Exclusively released in a collaboration with Eyestorm, the spin-screenprint followed the editions Opium, Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD) and Valium. Three successful editions from his ‘Pharmaceutical spot’ series made available the previous year. Beautiful, Galactic, Exploding Screenprint stands out as one created by Hirst and being the first screenprint from the series, superbly printed in 24 layers of manually applied ink. The edition of 500 is signed on front and numbered in pencil on verso.

To view the print edition in further detail and to find more information about available works by Damien Hirst, visit the artist’s page here.