He started producing spot paintings again, and - as happens every few years - this 46-year-old artist is staging yet another spectacle.

All the spot paintings are structured on the grid.

"They are the last of my work to catch on," he said of the spot paintings.

By February 1999, two assistants had painted 300 spot paintings.

Hirst's spot paintings are now on show around the world.

For the kind of people who buy the spot paintings, this is what's so reassuring about them.

The earlier examples are the most sought after, with a 1998 spot painting fetching a record price of £1.8 million.

Surely one spot painting is much like another.

The best spot painting you can have by me is one painted by Rachel.

The earliest spot paintings were done directly on the wall, he added, "so they looked like a giant machine had painted them."