Hirst collaborates with children on new spin painting

Britain’s richest living artist helped a bunch of children muck around with paint in London’s Covent Garden today.

Around 40 kids helped the artist create a new spin painting in the Piazza this morning.

Hirst first made spin paintings in the early 1990s and several are on show at the major Hirst retrospective currently at Tate Modern.

“Spin paintings are a massive explosion of energy - full of life, colour and optimism,” Hirst said. “All children are artists, so it's great to be getting all these kids together in Covent Garden to make them.”

The paintings are made by rotating a canvas on a flat turntable while brightly coloured paints are poured onto it from above.

The initiative was in aid of children’s Kids Company, which works to support London’s most vulnerable children with practical, emotional and educational support. The charity’s founder Camilla Batmanghelidjh joined Hirst at 10am this morning.

The spin painting Hirst and the children have produced will be auctioned off to raise money for Kids Company.

It was Hirst’s first public appearance following press reports that his long-term girlfriend, Maia Norman, who is the mother of his three children, has left him.