Private Collection, London (acquired directly from the artist)

This work is in very good condition overall. All the butterflies are stable and secure. There is a faint stretcher bar impression visible along the circumference of the work. Under ultraviolet light inspection there is no evidence of restoration. Framed under Plexiglas.
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"In and Out of Love," the garish and groundbreaking Damien Hirst show at the Woodstock Gallery in 1991, showcased Hirst's first series of butterfly paintings. These large, brightly colored canvases covered in household gloss and sprinkled with delicate butterfly wings mark the beginning of Hirst's enduring fascination with the butterfly motif, represented here in this 1999 work, I Fucking Love You. During the 1991 exhibition, Hirst cultivated larvae that eventually hatched into butterflies and flew around the 2^nd floor of the Woodstock Gallery. He saw this experiment as making "a comparison between art and life in the upstairs and downstairs installations," (Damien Hirst in R. Violet, ed., I Want to Spend the Rest of My Life Elsewhere, with Everyone, One to One, Always, Forever, Now., London, 1997, n.p.).

I Fucking Love You, like the canvases of the "In and Out of Love" show, is coated in synthetic household gloss. The bubblegum pink color of the paint is almost cloyingly saccharine and artificial, conjuring associations with Barbie or Cotton Candy. Writer Gordon Burn remarks in a 2008 interview with Hirst: "the synthetic colours, the repetition – [Hirst's] work is pop-inflected. It has roots in the pop tradition." Yet Hirst never fully commits to Pop Art, and pulls away from it by immortalizing these fragile, ethereal butterfly wings. Hirst's permanent application of the butterflies to the canvas makes them eternal, providing further juxtaposition to the transient Pop Art.

Unlike the monochromatic pink background, the butterflies are uniquely patterned, drawing a sharp distinction between the natural insects and the manufactured paint that constitute I Fucking Love You. Whereas the paint is thick and roughly applied, the butterflies are gingerly placed on the canvas. This painting becomes a meditation on contradictions: artiꦚficial vs. natural, Pop vs. eternal, generi♋c vs. unique, resulting in a strikingly beautiful, balanced and complex composition.