Beneficence

About This Work

Damien Hirst’s *Beneficence* distils the artist’s signature fusion of conceptual provocation and seductive surface, inviting viewers to confront the uneasy ethics of care, commerce, and belief. Executed with Hirst’s characteristically clinical precision and high-gloss finish, the work mobilises the visual language of medicine and modern display—order, repetition, and immaculate fabrication—to produce a potent tension between reassurance and disquiet. The title’s moral charge reframes the image as both promise and performance, echoing contemporary debates around philanthropy, institutional power, and the commodification of wellbeing. Situated within Hirst’s broader engagement with mortality and value, *Beneficence* functions as a contemporary memento mori—at once iconic, culturally resonant, and sharply attuned to the spectacle of late-capitalist compassion.

About the Artist

Damien Hirst was born in 1965 in Bristol and grew up in Leeds. In 1984 he moved to London, where he worked in construction before studying for a BA in Fine Art at Goldsmiths college from 1986 to 1989. He was awarded the Turner Prize in 1995. Since the late 1980’s, Hirst has used a varied practise of...

Zebra One Gallery

Contemporary Art • Hampstead, London

Established 1976 • 50 years of excellence in contemporary art • Professional authentication and provenance research