Credit: DAMIEN HIRST/GAGOSIAN GALLERY

The maxim that the best science possesses an artistic grace has probably never been applied to the down-and-dirty world of palaeontology. First there's all the digging, and then there's the arguing over how the fragmentary findings should be interpreted and slotted into the big picture. But a new painting by Damien Hirst, A New and Diminutive Species of Human Being Has Been Discovered, brings the face of Homo floresiensis (the ‘hobbit’) — one of palaeontology's most iconic recent images — to the gallery.

Photorealism — the painstakingly faithful reproduction of photographic images on canvas — is a surprising new direction for Hirst, arguably the doyen of the laddish Britart scene of the 1990s. Better known for pickling animals inside glass boxes, he has often engaged with science before. One of his trademark ‘dot paintings’ travelled to Mars aboard the ill-fated Beagle 2 lander and, given a smoother landing, would have been used to calibrate the craft's onboard cameras.

Hirst's other photorealist creations include images of the Iraq conflict, vivisection and a haunting reproduction of a British police anti-drugs campaign poster featuring the gaunt features of a now-dead crack addict. But what inspired him to take on H. floresiensis, unveiled in Nature last October? “It's just an excuse to paint skulls,” he says. Perhaps, but the hobbit's discoverers may nonetheless be amused to see the fruit of their labours raised to an art form.

A New and Diminutive Species of Human Being Has Been Discovered is part of the exhibition ‘The Elusive Truth’, which can be seen at the Gagosian Gallery in New York until 23 April.