Damien Hirst (born in 1965 in Bristol) is a major British artist of the Young British Artists (YBA) generation, who became famous for conceptual works that directly confront death, science, and the market value of art. He emerged in the early 1990s with animals preserved in formaldehyde—most notably the shark in The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living (1991)—and continued with series of “spot paintings,” pharmaceutical cabinets, and provocative sculptures such as the diamond-encrusted skull For the Love of God (2007). Winner of the Turner Prize in 1995, he has also shaped the art market through spectacular sales strategies and a practice in which the studio often functions as large-scale production, fueling both admiration and controversy.