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Damien Hirst — Rubix 20mg
Damien Hirst

Rubix 20mg

2025

Rubix 20mg is a work that sits at a fascinating intersection of Hirst's pharmaceutical obsessions and the pixelated, grid-based visual logic that defines Invader's practice, even as it is attributed solely to Hirst and executed in his signature household gloss on canvas. The title fuses 'Rubik' — the iconic colour-grid puzzle — with a pharmaceutical dosage notation, collapsing the playful geometry of the toy into the clinical language of medicine and suggesting that solving life's puzzles may itself be a form of self-medication. Hirst's use of household gloss, deliberately mundane and industrial, reinforces his long-standing critique of the fine-art object's elevated status while creating surfaces of startling optical intensity. The grid structure implicit in the Rubik's Cube reference aligns the work visually with both his own spot paintings and the 8-bit tile logic of Invader's street installations, creating a conceptual echo across the Triple Trouble collaboration even within a solo piece. At its core, Rubix 20mg asks whether order — visual, pharmaceutical, or psychological — is a solution or merely a more aesthetically pleasing form of the original problem.

Medium
Household gloss on canvas
Dimensions

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About this work

Damien Hirst, Rubix 20mg, 2025

Rubix 20mg is a work that sits at a fascinating intersection of Hirst's pharmaceutical obsessions and the pixelated, grid-based visual logic that defines Invader's practice, even as it is attributed solely to Hirst and executed in his signature household gloss on canvas. The title fuses 'Rubik' — the iconic colour-grid puzzle — with a pharmaceutical dosage notation, collapsing the playful geometry of the toy into the clinical language of medicine and suggesting that solving life's puzzles may itself be a form of self-medication. Hirst's use of household gloss, deliberately mundane and industrial, reinforces his long-standing critique of the fine-art object's elevated status while creating surfaces of startling optical intensity. The grid structure implicit in the Rubik's Cube reference aligns the work visually with both his own spot paintings and the 8-bit tile logic of Invader's street installations, creating a conceptual echo across the Triple Trouble collaboration even within a solo piece. At its core, Rubix 20mg asks whether order — visual, pharmaceutical, or psychological — is a solution or merely a more aesthetically pleasing form of the original problem.

Medium
Household gloss on canvas
Dimensions
109 x 109 cm
Year
2025
Seen at
HENI, London, United Kingdom

Related themes

Geometric, Bold Colors, Conceptual, Minimalist, British Artist, 2020s, Graphic, Gloss Paint, Abstract, Contemporary

More works by Damien Hirst

Collected by

Alex Capecelatro, Sarah Greenspan, Hamilton Selway Gallery, Brittany Laques