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Colour Space (H5)

Published by HENI in 2018, 'H5 - Colour Space' is a set of eight 90 x 90 cm Diasec-mounted giclée prints on aluminium by Damien Hirst. Each reproduces one of his 2016 Colour Space paintings, in which overlapping spots of colour float free of a grid. Each image is limited to 100 numbered copies and ten artist's proofs.

All Colour Space (H5) Works By Damien Hirst (8)

Significance & Analysis

'Colour Space' is the series in which Hirst let his spots go loose. Thirty years after his first spot paintings, he went back to their drips and uneven circles, and these eight prints carry that freer hand into HENI's numbered editions.

Back to the first spots

Hirst's first two spot paintings, made in 1986, were loose and drippy. He thought them uncool at the time and turned to the strict grid that defined the 'Spot Paintings' for decades. In 2016 he returned to that starting point. The new paintings keep two of the old rules: no colour repeats within a painting, and the spot size stays the same within each work. Without the grid and the perfect circle, the spots crowd, touch and splash. Hirst has said this brings back "the fallibility of the human hand", and he compares the results to cells seen under a microscope.

A finite series

The 'Spot Paintings' were conceived as endless. Colour Space was begun and finished in 2016, with 261 paintings in all, grouped by spot size from 6 mm to 100 mm and with some painted on black. The paintings were shown at Houghton Hall in Norfolk and then at Gagosian in New York in 2018, the year the prints appeared.

At auction

The strongest result for the series in the last five years came in March 2023, when 'Gritti' (H5-1), numbered 70/100, reached £16,510 including fees in Sotheby's online Made in Britain sale. Six months earlier 'Cafe Royal' (H5-7) had sold at Phillips London for £10,710, fees included. Prices have since settled lower: 'Beverly Hills' (H5-2) fetched £5,376 at Bonhams in London in November 2024.

Before and after

'Colour Space' closes the run of colour prints that opens HENI's numbering, after H3 - Colour Charts and H4 - Veils. Its spots sit between the two: freer than the chart's labelled boxes, more contained than the Veils' brushwork. The next release, H6 - The Aspects (2019), left the colour paintings behind for the butterfly, the motif that would carry several later HENI series.

Which Hotels Are The H5 - Colour Space Prints Named After?

Each title is the name of a famous hotel. 'Gritti' is the Gritti Palace in Venice, 'Beverly Hills' the Beverly Hills Hotel in California, 'Raffles' Singapore's Raffles Hotel and 'Plaza' The Plaza in New York. 'Claridges', 'Cafe Royal' and 'Savoy' are three London hotels, and 'Camino Real' is a hotel name best known from Mexico.

What Should The Label On An H5 - Colour Space Print Show?

Hirst's pencil signature and an edition number out of 100, on HENI's label on the reverse; ten artist's proofs complete the edition. Numbers were added in two ways, some by hand in felt-tip pen and some with a stamp, so either can be genuine. Prints often still come in HENI's original packaging.

How Are H5 - Colour Space Prints Mounted?

Ready to hang. Each print is flush-mounted to aluminium with a metal strainer on the reverse, as issued, and the face is Diasec-mounted, so no frame or glazing is needed. A missing strainer means the panel has been altered since it left HENI.