Whilst I was in New York, I attended the MET Museum and one of the exhibitions was one centred on David Hockney. One of the girls that I shared a room with had studied the artist at GCSE so we decided to have a wander around this particular exhibition. The exhibition was on the second floor and was larger than I expected when I first walked in. Walking through the building was beautiful, the architecture is just stunning.
The artwork ranged from his earlier work to his later and was spread across a number of joining rooms. I liked the art more and more towards the end of the exhibition. I found the whole thing very interesting and it took me back to my art GCSE and A Level days.
For nearly 60 years, David Hockney has made a career out of his love of painting. The exhibition, held in the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Galleries, Gallery 999, honours and celebrates the artist in his 80th year. The space showcased and presented his most iconic works and key moments of his career from 1960 to the present. It was almost like his journey and progression through his different styles of art.
Hockney works in a range of different media and his main focus appeared to be around how to capture the perceived world of movement, space, and time in two dimensions. I really enjoyed seeing the overview of the artist’s achievements across all media, including painting, drawing, photography, and video. I was not so much of a fan of his early experiments with modernist abstraction. However I loved some of his mid-career experiments with illusion and realism and especially his most recent jewel-toned landscapes.
There was a consistent theme throughout all of Hockney’s work: the exploration of the nature of perception and representation.
Below I have inserted a couple of my favourite pieces from the Hockey exhibition.
A Bigger Splash (1967) – Acrylic on canvas
Savings and Loan Building (1967) – Acrylic on canvas
Mount Fuji and Flowers (1972) – Acrylic on canvas
Pool and Steps, Le Nid du Duc (1971) – Acrylic on canvas
Contre-Jour in the French Style (1974) – Oil on canvas
Rachel
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