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Shepard Fairey — Flower Study with Hirst Butterflies 1
Shepard Fairey

Flower Study with Hirst Butterflies 1

2025

Flower Study with Hirst Butterflies 1 is a deeply collaborative artifact in spirit even as it bears Fairey's name alone, explicitly invoking Damien Hirst's iconic butterfly works and weaving them into Fairey's own visual grammar of stencil, silkscreen, and collage on paper. The mixed-media approach is central to its meaning — stenciling and silkscreening are the foundational tools of street art and graphic agitation, while collage introduces fragments of existing imagery, creating a palimpsest of artistic lineage and cross-pollination between the three collaborators. Hirst's butterflies, typically associated with themes of beauty, mortality, and the tension between the natural and the synthetic, are recontextualized here within Fairey's flat, posterized aesthetic, creating a visual conversation between fine art conceptualism and graphic activism. The title's academic framing — 'Study' — plays with irony, positioning an irreverent mashup of street and contemporary art traditions within the language of classical botanical illustration. This work may be the most self-aware piece in the Triple Trouble collection, functioning as both homage and critique of the boundaries between artistic movements and personal iconographies.

Medium
Mixed media (stencil, silkscreen and collage) on paper
Dimensions

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About this work

Shepard Fairey, Flower Study with Hirst Butterflies 1, 2025

Flower Study with Hirst Butterflies 1 is a deeply collaborative artifact in spirit even as it bears Fairey's name alone, explicitly invoking Damien Hirst's iconic butterfly works and weaving them into Fairey's own visual grammar of stencil, silkscreen, and collage on paper. The mixed-media approach is central to its meaning — stenciling and silkscreening are the foundational tools of street art and graphic agitation, while collage introduces fragments of existing imagery, creating a palimpsest of artistic lineage and cross-pollination between the three collaborators. Hirst's butterflies, typically associated with themes of beauty, mortality, and the tension between the natural and the synthetic, are recontextualized here within Fairey's flat, posterized aesthetic, creating a visual conversation between fine art conceptualism and graphic activism. The title's academic framing — 'Study' — plays with irony, positioning an irreverent mashup of street and contemporary art traditions within the language of classical botanical illustration. This work may be the most self-aware piece in the Triple Trouble collection, functioning as both homage and critique of the boundaries between artistic movements and personal iconographies.

Medium
Mixed media (stencil, silkscreen and collage) on paper
Dimensions
67.3 x 47 cm
Year
2025
Seen at
HENI, London, United Kingdom

Related themes

Butterfly Motif, Floral Study, Mixed Media, 2020s, American Artist, Nature Focused, Natural Colors, Contemporary Art, Silkscreen Print, Peaceful Mood

More works by Shepard Fairey

Collected by

Alex Capecelatro, Hamilton Selway Gallery