Damien Hirst|The Secrets (H14)

'The Secrets' shows Hirst carrying the method of his coast and sea pictures into the garden: a convincing scene built up in paint, then broken by a layer thrown at the surface. The prints followed only three months after the paintings were first seen. The paintings Gagosian unveiled 'The Secret Gardens Paintings' as a solo presentation for the 20th edition of Frieze London in October 2023. Hirst rendered blooms, shrubs and ponds quickly but convincingly, left some passages deliberately indistinct, and then hurled thick paint at each canvas from a loaded brush. The canvases were reported to have sold almost at once, even as some critics dismissed them as straightforward flower pictures. The series belongs to a line of painting that runs from the 'Fact Paintings' of 2002 through 'Colour Space', the 'Veil Paintings' and the 'Cherry Blossoms'. Its closest relatives are the 'Coast Paintings' and 'Seascapes'. As prints, the panels reproduce the flicks and drips of the final layer on a flat surface. Gardens that get away The title points to the garden as a place apart. Hirst has said he loves how gardens "make time stand still" and how "you can get lost in them", but loves them more "when they run wild". He wants the works to carry "the hope and futility we get when we try to control nature". The flung paint is easily read as that wildness breaking into the design, the chaotic laid over the planned. The print titles take a different register from the paintings, which carry names such as 'Garden of Celebration' and 'Garden of Expression'. The prints name qualities of mind and character instead: 'Happiness', 'Tolerance', 'Wisdom', 'Reassurance', 'Resolution' and 'Selflessness' alongside the first and last. Release and market HENI sold the prints between 25 January and 5 February 2024, with each edition set by the orders placed. 'Reassurance' ended smallest at 312 and 'Selflessness' largest at 578. The strongest result so far came in an online editions sale closing on 3 December 2025, when 'Happiness', numbered 292/327, reached £13,642 with buyer's premium. A complete set, every print numbered 201, sold for NZ$65,000 before fees at International Art Centre in Auckland in July 2024. Before and after The gardens follow directly from H13 - Where The Land Meets The Sea, whose seascapes first laid thrown paint over a realistic image. Three months later Hirst went back to the 'Cherry Blossoms' for H15 - Archangels, and the release model changed with him: four framed prints on paper in fixed editions of 100.