Damien Hirst (b. 1965)

Executed in 2008, Gold Thioglucose presents the viewer with Damien Hirst's iconic spots, rows of circles of single colours arranged equidistant from each other across a picture plane. Here, those spots have been granted a new transcendent dimension, shown against a backdrop of gold leaf. This adds a sensual shimmer to the work, granting a new lustre to the pools of colour which punctuate the surface so exuberantly. Meanwhile, the inclusion of this gold invokes a host of references, allowing Hirst to weave his complex net of associations into a picture which appears deliberately inscrutable, which seems to plead ignorance, which demands that we focus on its seductive surface rather than plunging into the realm of associations.