In parallel to his sculptural works Hirst worked on an unlimited series of dot paintings under the generic title The Pharmaceutical Paintings. He has referred to these as "A scientific approach to painting in a similar way to the drug companies’ scientific approach to life”.
Hirst’s spot paintings are among the most distinctive in contemporary art, a symbol that is recognized universally, cutting across boundaries of culture and language.
For his first major body of prints, The Last Supper, a series of thirteen screenprints made in 1999, Hirst based the designs on specific pharmaceutical packets but with the original drug names replaced by everyday British café food.
Two further series of prints followed in 2002 with the etchings, In a Spin, the Action of the world on Things, Volumes I and II, which derive from his large and on-going series of spin paintings made by pouring paint on spinning canvases.