“When your eyes stop moving, you are dead.” David Hockney
So a little background on David Hockney: He is a painter turned photographer/collage artist that gave up working all together to do research for 3 years that leads historians to believe that as far back as the 1400’s, painters were using lenses and mirrors to assist in painting. Shortly after he finishes this groundbreaking and controversial research, some of the most important people in his life die. That is pretty much where director Bruno Wollheim picks up as Hockney has given him permission to film his work off and on over four or five years.
Early on in the film, it’s Hockney taking the English countryside (Yorkshire) he grew up in and relentlessly driving around and painting in watercolors and eventually oils. He exclaims to the viewers that something this beautiful cannot be seen with a camera! You cannot see all of this by looking in a hole. You have to get out here and paint it. He proclaims that he is finished with photography. So that’s what he did… every day… for a couple years! He might pick a spot in the morning, and his assistant would set up on the roadside and Hockney would paint until the painting was done. A painting a day; an astonishing amount of work, and an astonishing work ethic. Did I mention that Hockney (during filming… now 2 years ago) was 70! The energy and emotion this guy has is amazing. He is up painting as the sun is rising, and wrapping up as the sun sets. Of course just about all of the paintings they showed were great.
As he refines what it is he’s doing, he receives a commission from a British museum to create a painting to fill a space that is 600 sq ft. He had two months to finish it… 50 canvases, when completed would all be connected and create one giant image. Hockney fearlessly starts the project and seems to be working at a pace that would make most people submit to exhaustion. Hockney shows sketches of the composition, and himself working both in the field, and also tweaking things back in his studio. The big ironic crazy twist… his staff, in order to give Hockney an idea of what each canvas should look like, is using digital photography in order to line up each pixel… I mean canvas. His studio will not allow him to work more than a few at a time, so on a computer screen, progress of the composition is tracked. Once the painting is hung, the idea of Hockney as a landscape artist is valid, but elements of his collage and photo work are also present. Not the total departure he had mentioned in the beginning.
Beyond the large commissioned piece, he then began to take his paintings and impose photographic elements on to them… below is a painting of an English countryside, with a winding road, but the trees or branches in the foreground would be actual photos that have somehow been transferred to the canvas. When Wollheim questions his methods and renewed interest in the camera, Hockney simply responds “Don’t believe what an artist says, only believe what he does”.
Hockney working on a 6 canvas image in Yorkshire.
An photo collage Hockney did of his mother.
One of his more recent works involving painting and photo collage to create a single image.
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