
From the Gutter to the Stars
2025
From the Gutter to the Stars is perhaps the most materially audacious work in the Triple Trouble collection, combining Hirst's use of medical waste and Invader's ceramic tile mosaics with the glittering addition of cubic zirconia — a synthetic diamond simulacrum — to create a work that is simultaneously abject and aspirational. The title itself maps the arc of street art's cultural trajectory: from its origins as an illegal, marginal practice to its current status as a globally celebrated and institutionally validated art form, a journey both Invader and Hirst, from different directions, embody. Hirst's medical waste, used here on canvas, carries his characteristic confrontation with bodily vulnerability, disease, and the clinical infrastructure of mortality, while Invader's ceramic tiles inject the pixelated order of 8-bit logic into this visceral material. The cubic zirconia — beautiful, artificial, and commercially deceptive — adds a layer of commentary on value, authenticity, and the art market's tendency to glamorize the transgressive. Together, these materials create a work of profound material contradiction that feels like the conceptual and symbolic heart of the entire Triple Trouble project.
- Medium
- Medical waste on canvas, ceramic tiles and cubic zirconia on wood
- Dimensions
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