Spot Painting - 1986

Spot paintings are amongst Hirst's most widely recognised works, aside from animal sculptures. He created his first spot on board in 1986; the smallest Spot painting comprising half a spot and measuring less than a square inch (1996); a monumental work comprising only four spots, each sixty inches in diameter; and most recent Spot painting (completed in 2011), containing 25,781 spots that are each one millimetre in diameter, with no single colour ever repeated.

No one knows how many there are, but estimates are in the thousands. While the artist painted the earliest ones, later spot paintings continue to be produced by assistants under his direction, sparking questions about value.

A Thousand Years - 1990

This work shows a rectangular glass tank, bisected at the midway point with a glass sheet that has been pierced with a few round holes. In one half of the tank is a severed cow’s head, with an insect-electrocuting light suspended above it, while the other half contains a large white dice, with one dot on every face. (You can’t win.) Maggots released into the tank feed on the cow’s head and metamorphose into flies before inevitably ending their lives on the electrocuting light. Hours can be spent observing the flies going about their business with what appears to be the utmost freedom, but which is in fact a freedom totally constrained by an inevitable ending zap.

This work attracted the attention of Charles Saatchi, who would become his most important financial backer. It also captivated Francis Bacon, he'd stood in front of the piece for an hour.

With Dead Head - 1991

This work shows Hirst posing for the camera with a severed head. The photograph was taken at a morgue in Leeds when he was sixteen - he went along with a friend who was studying microbiology. This work reveals his unflinching ability to confront death and life’s brevity even at an early age, but his expression betrays an underlying fear. Around this time he began to collect pathology books containing pictures of burns and wounds, and developed an interest in the work of Francis Bacon. Hirst maintained that, although he was fascinated by corpses - how they can be both visually horrific and beautiful at the same time - dead bodies still didn’t explain anything about death.

The Physical Impossibility of Death

in the Mind of the Living - 1991

This work established Hirst as a major presence in the art world. The 14 foot shark, preserved in a tank of formaldehyde, deals unashamedly with conceptions of death and the greatest human fears.

It became one of the most recognised examples of contemporary art and it symbolises all that the YBA movement stood for: the use of shock tactics to produce an instant reaction in the viewer, the use of non-art materials and the huge production value.

Charles Saatchi funded both the work and the exhibition, which were roundly condemned by art world conservatives from London to New York, and embraced by audiences eager for something new.

Nominated for the Turner Prize in 1992.

In and Out of Love

(White Paintings and Live Butterflies) - 1991

Hirst presented In and Out of Love, his first solo exhibition in London. Taking up two floors of the Woodstock Street Gallery between June 21 and July 26, 1991. The exhibition comprised of a room of live butterflies and an installation titled Butterfly Paintings and Ashtrays.

In the humid upstairs room, butterflies emerged from pupae attached to white painted canvases. Flowers and sugar water enabled the butterflies to fly, mate and lay eggs until they died.

In the second room, an installation of monochrome gloss paintings, with the bodies of dead butterflies fixed into the paint, surrounded a central table punctuated by overflowing ashtrays. The ashtrays were included to give the impression of a private view.

The work caused critical excitement. When asked what the work was about, Hirst responded: "One's the romantic view of it, the other the harsh reality. I'm not sure which is which."

Pharmacy - 1992

Hirst's pharmacy at first glance appeared to be just that: a behind-the-scenes look into a pharmacist's world. The public can enter a place it rarely has access to, and the room appears to be a sort of temple to the 'art' of medicine.

Thousands of pill bottles and medicinal boxes rest on wooden shelves along the room’s edges. They are strategically placed, providing a sense of order. Many of the receptacles are very colourful and contribute a pleasing aesthetic appeal to the open space.

Hirst said: “I can’t understand why some people believe completely in medicine and not in art, without questioning either.” He finds it strange that people are so willing to place their trust in medicine, but don’t have a similar faith in the therapeutic nature of art.

The installation asks us to contemplate life and death, and to perhaps question our sometimes blind faith in medicine and pharmaceutical companies.

Mother and Child Divided - 1995

This floor-based sculpture is made up of four glass-walled tanks, each containing one-half of a cow and calf. Each tank's white wood frames echo the clear, clean forms of classic Minimalist sculpture. Their contents on the other hand, would be neither elegant nor minimalistic, with each bisected and preserved in transparent turquoise formaldehyde solution.

Installed in pairs, with sufficient space between each pair that a visitor may walk between them and view the animals’ insides. Each animal is hung over the tank's bottom, its front legs hanging limply, heightening the sensation of death. The calf's tongue lolls out of its mouth.

Created for exhibition at the 1993 Venice Biennale and was subsequently the focal point of the 1995 Turner Prize at the Tate Gallery, the year that he won the prize. Now in the collection of the Astrup Fernley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo.

For the Love of God - 2007

Hirst grabbed the attention of fans and critics alike when he produced a platinum cast of an 18th century human skull encrusted with 8,601 diamonds, including a 52.4 carat pink diamond inset in the front of the cranium. Proclaiming victory over decay, the celestial skull was akin to a contemporary vanitas, reminding the viewer of their own mortality. When asked about the skull, Hirst stated: "I  just thought what's the maximum you could pit against death and a diamond came to mind."

Reputed to be the most expensive contemporary artwork ever made. Costing £12 million to produce, the work was displayed in London before travelling to Amsterdam where it was exhibited at the historic Rijksmuseum alongside a collection of paintings from the museum. The artwork then

travelled to Italy, Qatar and Norway where it was displayed at prestigious locations such as the Palazzo Vecchio.