Fact sheet DHI - Beautiful Cyclone

Damien Hirst
Beautiful Cyclone (2023)
From the Beautiful Paintings Series – Created by Damien Hirst for display
70 x 70 cm
Unique
Signed on the front – comes in original packaging
Beautiful Cyclone is a distinctive work from Damien Hirst’s The Beautiful Paintings, a project that
explores authorship, chance and digital production through a generative system. While the wider
project invited the public to create works by selecting parameters within Hirst’s bespoke algorithm
— each resulting artwork receiving a unique, machine-generated ‘Beautiful’ title — a small number
of works were created directly by Hirst himself as examples for the catalogue and launch of the
collection.
Beautiful Cyclone is one of these rare artist-designed examples. Created by Hirst to demonstrate the
visual potential of the system, the work showcases the dramatic “cyclone” pattern: a dynamic
vortex of colour and motion that echoes long-standing themes in Hirst’s practice, including energy,
repetition, and controlled unpredictability.

As such, the piece occupies a unique position within the series — not only as an exemplar of the
project’s aesthetic language, but also as a work shaped by the artist’s own hand and choices within
the generative framework.
The piece gained further prominence when it was selected to be given away as part of an Instagram
competition at the time of the project’s launch, placing it at the intersection of contemporary art,
digital culture, and public participation. Its history as both a launch example and a public giveaway
forms an important part of its provenance.
Please click below to see Damien Hirst discuss the work for the Instagram competition.
Now available for sale, Cyclone represents a particularly special opportunity within The Beautiful
Paintings: a work conceived by Damien Hirst himself, emblematic of the collection’s visual identity,
and accompanied by video footage of the artist discussing the work in the context of the giveaway.
Together, these elements make Cyclone one of the most significant and desirable examples from
the series.
Please click below to watch a video showing close-up detail of this Beautiful artwork.