Damien Hirst|Where The Land Meets The Sea (H13)

sea The 'Coast Paintings' of 2019 began as grey canvases lying on the studio floor while Hirst worked on his 'Cherry Blossoms'. He then turned them into action paintings, splattered with colour to suggest the energy of the seaside in winter. Their abstraction is built into the prints: HENI issued all eight to hang any way up. The 'Sea Paintings' of 2022 go the other way. They reproduce photographs of coastal storms from around the world in exact detail, the latest stage of the 'Fact Paintings' Hirst has pursued for some 25 years. The 'Seascapes' merge the two, laying the splatter of the coast canvases over photorealistic waves. Why the shoreline Hirst traces the series to childhood holidays on the Yorkshire coast, at Scarborough, Filey, Whitby and Robin Hood's Bay, and to long winter walks watching waves break. He has said the sight gives him "a feeling of unimportance and vastness and inevitability", a sense that the world will eventually be worn away. The title can be read in that light: the edge of the land is where the wearing away happens, close to the concern with life and death that runs through his work. The titles follow the split: real places on the coast for the abstract works, and states of the weather and water, such as 'Blizzard' and 'Doldrums', for the sea pictures. A timed release HENI sold the prints between 3 and 14 August 2023 and fixed each edition by the orders placed in that window. The results were uneven: 192 copies of 'Faneel', and 601 of 'Studland Bay'. In the saleroom The mixed works lead the market. 'Doldrums' (H13-12), a Seascape, fetched £11,000 including fees at Louiza Auction in September 2024, the highest price found for a single H13 print. 'Blizzard', the other Seascape, made £7,500 with fees there in June 2025. At Phillips London that month, H13-5 to H13-8 sold as a group of four for £13,970, and H13-9 to H13-12 for £12,700, both including fees. Sequence The series followed H12 - The Beautiful Paintings, where software generated the images. H13 returned to images of paintings made by hand. Hirst then moved the same method inland: the gardens of H14 - The Secrets build on the coast and seascape technique, a recognisable scene finished with a layer of thrown paint.