Created using a Jacquard loom, Supernatural is one of twelve monumental tapestries that Damien Hirst produced in 2016 as part of an experimental series titled Enter the Infinite (The Visions). Derived from the organic compositions Hirst achieved through his renowned Spin Paintings, the designs for these tapestries were conversely created using a precise mathematical process: for each work, sections of Hirst’s 2008 Spin Painting titled Beautiful Flailing, Falling, Grip on Reality, Pull Yourself Together Painting were divided, reflected, and repeated to form prismatic bursts of colour. Perfectly symmetrical, Hirst’s fabric designs recall the inkblots of the Rorschach Test – a projective psychological test where a viewer’s personality and emotional functioning are analysed from their interpretations of an ambiguous image. Confronted with an organised chaos of reds, blues, greens, and yellows, Hirst’s Supernatural envelops a viewer - pushing the human eye to its limits and demanding engagement with the psyche.

Hirst’s tapestries deliberately play with the concepts of depth and perception, with each work appearing to pulsate as the eye attempts to calibrate the fluctuations between inward and outward motion. All twelve of Hirst’s tapestries contain a focal point at their centre, which serves almost like the eye of a storm: an oasis of calm amid an energetic environment. At the centre of Supernatural, a blue diamond-like shape with two dots of yellow on either side draws the eye deep into the heart of the design. From there, cross-like forms explode outwards from the centre, vertically in yellow and horizontally in white. Echoing these layered ‘X’ forms, splatters of magenta, blue, white and yellow vibrate as they extend towards the tapestry’s edges, amidst an earthy green. The result is an uneasy visual journey, as the eye is drawn into the centre of the tapestry before being promptly expelled – a repetitive cycle that engulfs an onlooker. Rather than allowing his work to be viewed passively, Hirst’s illusionistic Supernatural commands visual attention, luring the viewer in to partake in this kaleidoscopic, entrancing experience.

Famed for his numerous artistic explorations of the intersections between science, art and religion, the titles of Hirst's individual tapestries – and the Enter the Infinite series in its entirety – signify the artist's attempts to construct a transcendental experience through art. Alongside Supernatural, works such as Prophecy, Revelation, Trance and Exaltation demonstrate Hirst's intention to create art that is not solely viewed, but instead encountered and remembered as an ineffably transformational interaction, akin to a religious experience.