When most people think of artists, they think of Picasso or Michelangelo - classic artists, long gone and forever famous. However, art has never stopped being created, and one of today's most popular artists is Damien Hirst.

Unlike the paintings of a bygone era, Damien's art is much more modern, consisting of textural and visual stimulation, risqué “sculptures,” and a unique flair for understated drama that warps and bends the overactive imagination. Hirst is reported to be the richest artist alive, and is famously known for selling his entire show at a Sotheby's auction for an estimated $198 million (USD).

There's a continuous theme throughout Hirst's work, one that makes him an extremely controversial figure to purists and traditionalists, but also a risk-taking godsend to the enthusiasts of all things modern and taboo. Damien deals in death, simply put.

As a member of the Young British Artists, Hirst dominated the entire art scene throughout the 1990s. Many consider him to be an artful taxidermist, preserving dead animals-such as his famous sheep, cow and shark-that are dressed up and sometimes dissected. Hirst also has a series of paintings called “spin” and “spot” paintings.

The artist was born Damien Steven Hirst on June 7, 1965 in Bristol, England. Son to an auto mechanic and an authoritarian mother, Hirst rebelled and found art. However, he wasn't the accepted artist at first, and it took him more than one try to be accepted into the Leeds College of Art and Design.

In his early career, Hirst modeled his art after the work of Francis Davison, using various colors and texture and sizes of pictures to create collages. From 1986 to 1989, Hirst would attend the famed University of London where he studied Fine Art at Goldsmiths.

Hirst became the organizer of an independent student exhibition for Goldsmiths College. His own contribution to the show was well received, and after graduating college, he was included in the new Contemporaries show at Kettles Yard in Cambridge.

Hirst started creating art for his own solo exhibitions in 1991, and had shows at key locations throughout London. After forming the Young British Artists and receiving funding from Charles Saatchi in 1991, Hirst achieved his first big sale: 50,000 GBP for his work titled The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living. This piece would become the character of British art throughout the 1990s.

Hirst's star only continued to grow from that point. Like any artist, however, Hirst has experienced both the positive and the extreme, unrelentingly harsh negative. On a high point, he's been compared with Andy Warhol. On his lows, some claim Hirst is a hack, a glorified crypt keeper.

Some of Damien's most famous works include The Wrath of God, The Inescapable Truth, Saint Sebastian, The Hat Makes de Man, Breath, Hymn, Arachidic Acid, A Thousand Years, Away From the Flock, and The Sacred Heart of Jesus. In 2008, he hit the headlines around the world when for many, he created The Love of God - a human skull encrusted with diamonds, which sold for £50m.

Hirst is still creating art today. He is a recovering drug and alcohol addict, and lives with his girlfriend and three children.