Hockney, Tate Britain

Last week I visited the David Hockney exhibition currently on at the Tate Britain, something I had been desperate to do for months. It was a collection of almost sixty years of Hockney's work, and to see all of it exhibited together was really exciting. David Hockney has been one of my favourite artists for a long time, due to his exuberant use of colour and his skillful representation of people, the way they seem to be alive within the canvas. I had never been to a Hockney exhibition before this one, so it felt really powerful to see examples of all his work in front of me. One of my favourite things about seeing the work in real life was the way you could see some of the 'imperfections' or unfinished parts of the paintings. This was a revealing aspect of Hockney's practice, as it reflected his experimental nature and the fact that he has always been keen to explore lots of ideas and techniques in his work.

 I was most excited to see his classic paintings, such as 'A Bigger Splash,' 'Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy,' and 'My Parents,' and they didn't disappoint. However, I was most surprised by how taken I was with his sketches and drawings. These were shown in the gallery after the one full of all his iconic paintings and it was fascinating to see the preliminary sketches which led to the bigger pieces. In some ways these were more interesting, as not only did they give an insight into Hockney's whole artistic process, they also emphasised his huge talent for drawing and injecting life and movement into a sketch which might be just a few lines done with ink or even crayon. 

Following this was some of Hockney's photography, tracing his experimentation with Polaroids and then 35mm film in order to create tapestry-like collections of photographs which give multi-angled and layered compositions. This was most interesting because I had never really considered Hockney as a photographer before, so to see the extent to which he actually explored this medium really changed my appreciation of his work. 

Towards the end of the exhibition, the works shown were those which represented Hockney's 'Experiences of Place,' focusing on his home of Yorkshire, contrasted with his determination to paint vast spaces of the American landscape, especially the Grand Canyon. 

In 2006 Hockney returned to Yorkshire to paint the light and landscape of the Wolds. These paintings were done on large canvases, sometimes assembling them to create even bigger single images. I loved these, as they were colourful and slightly surreal, but really conveyed his love of the countryside where he had grown up. They were exaggerated and vibrant, and really transported you from the gallery into the countryside. 

Finally, perhaps my favourite part of the exhibition was a collection of multi-screen video works representing the four seasons. Hockney fixed a number of cameras to the outside of a vehicle which was driven along a road at Woldgate, near Bridlington, Yorkshire. What resulted was a cubist film showing the same road in Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter on the four walls of the gallery. It was a totally immersive experience and really evoked the best things about each season, and how each one provides inspiration and excitement.

Overall I found the exhibition eye-opening and intriguing and I'm so glad I was able to visit. It made me realise how important experimentation is and has always been to Hockney, and what I liked about his work was that it seemed as though he was creating it for himself, not a specific audience, which allowed him to do some really interesting things. Not all of these seemed to work all the time, but I think the fact that he is so willing to take risks in his work and try things just for the sake of it and out of curiosity makes him one of the most important and exciting artists living today. He is constantly pushing the boundaries of his practice and, as shown with his recent iPad drawings, he is able to adapt and embrace new techniques to develop his work and add new dimensions to his pieces.

The Leaflet for the exhibition

A book I got from the shop afterwards. I'm really interested to read more about Hockney's drawing and sketching work and see how this could feed into my own print practice.