Acquired directly from the artist 

This work is in very good condition overall. There is evidence of light wear and handling to the sides of the canvas. Unframed.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
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“I always wanted to be a painter much more than a sculptor or an artist, but I was overwhelmed by the infinite possibilities of painting. I think it’s got something to do with the void, the void of the blank canvas where anything and everything is possible beyond gravity, beyond life, in the realms of the imagination.” Damien Hirst (I Want to Spend the Rest of My Life Everywhere, with Everyone, One to One, Always, Forever, Now, London, 1997, p. 246)

Crisply executed on a grand scale of variegated chromatic circles, Zinc Sulfide is an exceptional example from Damien Hirst's celebrated corpus of Spot Paintings. As an inorganic compound commonly used to create pigments and luminescent materials, Zinc Sulfide is the appropriate title for a painting exhibiting such a kaleidoscopic spectrum of vibrant color. Painted in 2004, the work displays Hirst's self-restricting methodology of candy colored grids and formal cogency. The artist’s systematic approach to painting belies an unsettling and fractured viewing experience: "If you look closely at any one of these paintings a strange thing happens; because of the lack of repeated colours there is no harmony... in every painting there is a subliminal sense of unease; yet the colours project so much joy it's hard to feel it, but it's there." (Ibid, p. 246) Zinc Sulfide deliberately denies color harmony while simultaneously seducing the viewer with its mesmerizing regularity and geometric logic. Hirst infuses his perfectly balanced Spot Paintings with the clinical sterility and semiotic reassurance of pharmaceutical products. The viewer’s roaming eye is desperate to find order within the confined tondo, which is symptomatic of the universal human desire to organize and structure the chaos of nature with harmony and intellectual understanding. Zinc Sulfide fundamentally celebrates the act of painting through one of Hirst’s most iconic and recognizable motifs, while simultane🅺ously motivating the audience to contemplate the antithetic⛄al faculties of science and art.