Damien Hirst (born Bristol, England, 1965) is an internationally renowned artist and the leading figure of the group that has been dubbed “Young British Artists” (or YBAs). Death, or the transience of life, is a central theme in his work. He is best known for his extraordinary Natural History series, which includes The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, a 12ft (4 m) tiger shark floating in a glass tank of formaldehyde.

PYet Hirst also creates works in a brighter vein. One thinks immediately of his series of “spin paintings”, made from house paint poured onto a spinning circular canvas, and The Pharmaceutical Paintings (commonly referred to as “spot paintings”), presenting rows of individually coloured circles; these have been imitated in commercial graphics. Spots reappear in Hirst’s creation of this issue of point d’ironie...

“ Information, codes, a paint chart, people, language, beads, plates, eyes, pretty, mathematical, logos, art, geometry, molecules, spots, dots, planets, acne, pills, which way up, or down, what size - big or small, why they exist, what they are trying to say, why they look good, I don’t know what the fuck they are. ” — Damien Hirstt