
Fallen Star (Butterfly Mandala)
2025
Fallen Star (Butterfly Mandala) is a luminous and symbolically dense collaboration between Shepard Fairey and Damien Hirst, fusing Hirst's iconic use of real butterfly wings with Fairey's bold propaganda-inflected graphic sensibility in a work that oscillates between transcendence and entropy. The mandala structure — a form drawn from Eastern spiritual traditions representing the universe and cyclical wholeness — is built from actual butterfly wings set in household gloss, while Fairey's spray paint and collage layers impose geometric order and graphic tension atop the natural, irregular beauty of the specimens. The title introduces a note of cosmic melancholy: a fallen star suggests both a celestial event and a diminishment, a beauty that has descended or been extinguished, which resonates powerfully against the transience encoded in the butterfly as a universal symbol of transformation and mortality. Fairey's OBEY aesthetic, rooted in the power of repeated imagery and bold contrast, collides productively with Hirst's biological materiality, creating a work where nature is simultaneously revered and co-opted. The result is one of the collection's most spiritually and visually ambitious pieces, asking whether patterns — cosmic, natural, or political — can offer consolation in the face of inevitable decline.
- Medium
- Butterflies, household gloss, spray paint and collage on canvas
- Dimensions
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