The Virgin Mother by Damien Hirst

Damien Hirst - The Virgin Mother The Virgin Mother in 2005. It is a 10-meter tall statue of a woman, made of gold, silver and bronze, and installed in the courtyard of Lever House in New York, outside London’s Royal Academy and on Fontvieille Harbour, Monaco. One half of the statue sees the naked pregnant woman, while the other shows what’s beneath the skin – the muscles, the bones, the fetus inside the womb. The sculpture is considered to be the female version of Damien Hirst’s Hymn sculpture, created between 1999 and 2005, and it references painter Edgar Degas and his 1881 painting Little Dancer of Fourteen Years celebrating mother’s influence on the child.

(http://www.widewalls.ch/10-contemporary-artworks-for-mothers-day/martin-creed-mothers/)

Biographical information:
Damien Hirst was born in Bristol, England on June 7, 1965. His art is considered controversial and emerged as a leading figure in the Young British Artists movement in the late 1980's and 1990. Some of his works, including dead animal displays and spin-art paintings, have sold for high prices. First is one of the wealthiest artists living today. 

Hirst and his fellow students became part of an emerging movement known as the Young British Artists. They were known for their unusual materials and for their challenging art concepts. One of Hirst's early works, "With Dead Head," illustrates his interest in death and shaking up the art establishment. In the photograph the artist, with a huge grin on his face, poses next to a severed head in a morgue.

While not everyone was enthralled with his work, Hirst received support from Charles Saatchi, advertising titan and art collector. Saatchi lent financial assistance to Hirst, and also started collecting Hirst's pieces, which also advanced the artist's reputation. Saatchi bought two of Hirst's medicine cabinet sculptures, which one critic later said constituted "a constellation of still lifes that express and reflect the human body as a field of vulnerabilities and of hopeful medical interventions."(http://www.biography.com/people/damien-hirst-20683781#later-works)

Artist Statement:
The figure’s stance recalls Edgar Degas’s ‘Little Dancer of Fourteen Years’ (c.1881). Hirst explains the significance of the reference to Degas: “It is kind of naughty; she shouldn't really be pregnant. I wanted a feeling of that. Anyone who is pregnant looks old enough, that's the problem.” (http://www.damienhirst.com/the-virgin-mother)

Elements of art:
The natural form of this three-dimensional art piece is large in scale made of gold, silver and bronze. The broken form in the shape of the human body to what is seen beneath the human body gives the metal sculpture a shock value.

Connection:
This sculpture connects to the motherhood theme and makes me feel or imagine the pregnancy as a mechanical process. The use of metal and taking off the outer layer of the human body to see the mechanical pieces that lay beyond our skin in order to create a living being within our bodies. I feel that there is a lack of emotion in the creation of this baby, yet powerful.