Damien Hirst
Oil on canvas
152cm x 152cm
2013
"In his best portrait yet, [Damien Hirst], Yeo has created a tour-de-force exemplar of modern status portraiture, graphically linking traditional formulae of fame and achievement with a threatening undercurrent. Hirst is confrontationally enthroned, utilizing the most unequivocal language of hierarchical portraiture, something that Sutherland used for Churchill, and Bacon employed for his screaming popes, and which reaches graphically back to Renaissance power portraiture. Its formality is tempered by thuggishness. The beautifully painted booted dry chemical suit becomes the regalia of the bad boy; Yeo has cast him in paint as the art world’s tyrant, gloriously earthed by the tools of his trade."
