donated by Flaming Lips front man Wayne Coyne.
The Oklahoma City Convention Center just got a little more colorful thanks to agreement to house a piece from the collection of Flaming Lips front man Wayne Coyne. The work titled, “Beautiful Mystical Exploding Sun Clouds Taste Metallic Gift Painting,” was created in 2010 by Coyne and popular English artist Damien Hirst.
Coyne loaned the art to the City for ten years. It appraised for more than $1.5 million and is on display on the Convention Center’s fourth floor.
The work was created by standing on an elevated platform while pouring paint onto a large circular canvas. As the paint pours, a machine rotates the canvas like a disc on a record.
The painting was initially housed at a building in Automobile Alley that Coyne rented and named “The Womb” (currently Factory Obscura Mix-Tape). Because of its colossal size, the painting was suspended from the ceiling, where it hung for several years.
Coyne began conversations with Mayor David Holt on a long-term place the public could view the piece. After visits to area museums, they decided the new Oklahoma City Convention Center was the ideal place because of the wall size and the number of annual visitors to the center.
Kasum Contemporary Fine Art, an Oklahoma City company, prepared the artwork for display. They moved the painting from storage, stretched the canvas out over several sessions and secured the work to the convention center’s wall.
Coyne is the front man of the band The Flaming Lips which he formed in 1983. The band has toured around the globe and always draws large crowds for their festival performances. The band is a three-time Grammy Awards winner and is best known for their song “She Don’t Use Jelly.”
Hirst is a British artist, entrepreneur, and art collector that emerged on the international art scene in the late 1980s. His installations, sculptures, paintings and drawings “examine the complex relationships between art and beauty, religion and science, and life and death.” He is one of the Young British Artists (YBAs) who dominated the art scene in the UK during the 1990s and is one of the world’s wealthiest living artists.
