Inspired by the television documentary about the exhibition we booked tickets to visit the David Hockney Exhibition at the Royal Academy in London over the Easter break. The documentary explained how the paintings had come about and many of the paintings had begun life on Hockneys ipad, a medium new to him in terms of painting but one which he tells how he took to very quickly and found to be a very useful and flexible way to get the his ideas onto 'canvas'.
Visiting art galleries with three children can be a very testing experience however on this occassion we needn't have worries. Hockney was commissioned by the Royal Academy to produce the painting for this exhibition and as a result it was presented in a very coherent aesthetic way. Much of the work has been done using vibrant, 'sunny' co lours more reminiscent of the impressionists in Europe than the Yorkshire wold they represent. This is to great effect however as is the fact that many of the canvases are huge, some taking up a whole wall. Each gallery had a fantastic wow factor, making the whole thing surprisingly child friendly!
"David Hockney RA: A Bigger Picture' spans a 50 year period to demonstrate Hockney’s long exploration and fascination with the depiction of landscape. New work that dates from 2005 captures the beauty of the changing seasons, the cycle of growth and the journey that Hockney has taken through his beloved landscapes in Yorkshire.
The exhibition also reveals how Hockney has embraced new technology, including his early use of the Polaroid, his innovative use of the colour photocopier, and more recently his iPhone and iPad. The exhibition includes a display of his iPad drawings and a series of new films produced using 18 cameras, which are displayed on multiple screens and provide a spellbinding visual journey through the eyes of David Hockney.
Born in Bradford in 1937, David Hockney attended Bradford School of Art before studying at the Royal College of Art from 1959 to 1962. Hockney’s stellar reputation was established while he was still a student; his work was featured in the exhibition Young Contemporaries, which heralded the birth of British Pop Art. He visited Los Angeles in the early 1960s and settled there soon after. He is closely associated with southern California and has produced a large body of work there over many decades. David Hockney was elected a Royal Academician in 1991."
The first gallery includes some of Hockneys paintings and photography from when he lived in Los Angeles in the 1960's. I love photography and particularly liked his photo montage work from that time. Calfornia features also towards the end of the exhibition with some of Hockneys more recent landscape paintings of 'Half Dome' and Yosemite National Park.
Overall the exhibition was well worth a visit, the ipad idea is an interesting one and I would quite like to explore it.
No comments:
Post a Comment