Damien Hirst shares a glimpse of new coffee artwork
Art’s enfant terrible Damien Hirst shares glimpse of new coffee artwork ahead of plans to burn thousands of paintings for new project
Could this be the most expensive cup of coffee ever?
The richest artist in the world, Damien Hirst, worth £315 million, has shared a glimpse of a new work of art, a cappuccino with an image of the 57-year-old and his ex-ballerina girlfriend Sophie Cannell, 28, in his milk foam.
According to Richard Eden of the Daily Mail, Hirst will burn thousands of his famous polka dot paintings next month in a project that focuses on art as a means of payment.
Buyers who spent £1,600 on the physical art were given the opportunity to see their investment set on fire in exchange for a digital version known as a Non-Fungible Token (NFT).
An NFT is a unique computer file encrypted with an artist’s signature, which acts as a digital certificate of ownership and authenticity.
They probably needed something stronger than coffee after making that decision.
The richest artist in the world, Damien Hirst (left of both photos), has shared a glimpse of a new work of art, a cappuccino (right photo) featuring the 57-year-old and his ex-ballerina girlfriend Sophie Cannell (right of both photos) in milk foam. , 28
He created 10,000 unique dot paintings in 2016, which were later linked to corresponding NFTs and sold for $2,000 (£1639) each.
Buyers could keep the NFTs or trade them in for the physical artwork.
4,180 people chose to exchange their NFTs for a physical work of art and 5,820 kept their NFTs, reports Heni, a technology company focused on the art market.
The alternate versions are destroyed.
In recent years, NFTs have been adopted by people looking to turn art, music, videos and games into digital assets – and have been hailed as the digital answer to collectibles.
His Love: Damien is said to be in love with Sophie, who appears with him on the coffee artwork, but despite him giving her a diamond ring, they are not engaged
Most NFTs use blockchain – the decentralized military first used by bitcoin to track ownership of the cryptocurrency – to record who they belong to and allow them to be traded or modified.
Most NFTs are part of the Ethereum blockchain – Ethereum is a cryptocurrency and one coin is worth 1,285.04 GBP or 1,628.43 USD.
Damien is said to be in love with Sophie, who appears on the coffee artwork with him.
Better times: Damien’s love life prior to Sophie included his long-term girlfriend Maia Norman, with whom he shares three sons – at the UK premiere of Disney/Pixar’s Finding Nemo in 2003
It was previously reported that the couple met at the posh Chiltern Firehouse, where she used to work as a waitress.
Damien’s love life prior to Sophie included his long-term girlfriend Maia Norman, with whom he shares three sons.
The former couple are parents to Connor Ojala, 26, Cassius Atticus, 21, and Cyrus Joe, 16.
Although he never married Maia, he called her his “common law wife.”
After the birth of his eldest child Connor, the artist spent much of his time in a remote farmhouse near Combe Martin in Devon.