Visceral and captivating, Septicaemia is emblematic of Hirst’s restless investigation into the subtle point of transition between life and death. Created in 2003 and inspired by Richard Serra’s black paintstick drawings, the present lot coincides with Hirst’s re-visitation of dead flies as a medium, after his first attempt in 1997. Refining the technique in his addition of resin, Septicaemia appears asan exquisite tapestry comprised by thousands of dead flies densely layered upon the canvas. When asked about his source of inspiration he stated: ‘I think I am just looking at things from very far away. You get a kind of black… I think that makes me ever do anything is if there is something kind of humorous, which is always good. You do it for stupid reasons, but then you find something out that is really good’.

The present lot is part of the celebrated series ‘The Cancer Chronicles’, first exhibited at the ‘Romance in the Age of Uncertainty’ show at White Cube, London, in 2003. Each piece was titled using the name of a modern disease; such as Tuberculosis, Syphillis, Aids and Malaria. Derived from the Greek term Sepsis, meaning ‘decay’ or ‘to putrefy’, Septicaemia is imbued by an apocalyptic vision of modern-day plagues. This vision was earlier explored by the artist in 1990 in his ground-breaking fly vitrine pieces: ‘A Thousand Years’ and ‘A Hundred Years’. Commenting on this pieces and emphasizing his particular interest in the mechanics of death then said: ‘Oh my God! What have I done? I think it was Thomas Hobbes who said people are like flies brushed off a wall. I like that metaphorically. Your whole life could be like points in space, like nearly nothing. If you make that connection with the paintings… it is like all the people in the world who die in a hundred years. That amount of death is pretty dark’.