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| © David Hockney |
A recent article I wrote for my University Magazine. Although the exhibition at the Royal Academy is now finished you can still catch a glimpse of it, accompanied with a unique and insightful commentary from Hockney himself by viewing the Royal Academy's video http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibitions/hockney/
David Hockney? Think big and think bright. Hockney isn’t shy
when it comes to his art work and he matches huge imposing images with equally
magnificent colours. The undiluted, contrasting colours he uses, which range
from vivid pinks and turquoise to brash blues and oranges, appear to have come
straight from the tube; as if no one ever explained to him he could mix his
paints to create softer hues. Yet these colours give the paintings a warmth
which invites you in, and there is an intimacy gained through the use of close
viewpoints despite the grand scale of some of his pieces. He was in fact forced
into using separate canvases as his studio simply wasn’t big enough to house
the sizes of the pieces he wanted; resulting in a grid effect which has led to
his famous variety of perspectives within a single image. In just one room of
his recent ‘A Bigger Picture’ exhibition at the Royal Academy, the installation
The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate, East
Yorkshire in 2011 is made up of an astonishing 52 iPad drawings blown up to around a metre, and a single, dominating
painting which spans the wall, made up of 32 separate canvases and stands at
365.8cm x 975.4cm. He likes to focus on journeys through the landscape and many
of his works have twisting paths cutting through them. This gigantic piece is
no exception with a path straight down the middle and the leaves of the
surrounding trees directing you down it. At Hockney’s recent exhibition you
really couldn’t find ‘A Bigger Picture’.
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