Annely Juda Fine Art presents David Hockney ‘Painting and Photography’. The show explores the artist’s lifelong interest in perspective and the flat surface of the canvas, through his latest series of works created in Los Angeles. Artlyst attended the press view of Hockney’s latest exhibition after the artist travelled back to the UK especially for its opening.
Now Hockney is back in London for a time where he keeps a home, after eight productive years in Bridlington, which culminated in his blockbuster ‘A Bigger Picture’ exhibition at the Royal Academy in 2012. The artist left the UK in the summer of 2013, following the death of his studio assistant, Dominic Elliott. An inquest into the death found the assistant had died after drinking drain cleaner at the end of a drink and drugs binge. A tragic event that was detrimental to Hockney’s practice – finding it nearly impossible to paint – the artist moved to LA.
What is currently exciting the artist is his current practice of creating 3D photographs, which have involved him taking hundreds of up-close photographs of a variety of objects including heads, jackets, walls, tables and a lot of chairs, culminating in a type of collage or jigsaw exploring multiple planes of perspective.
The 77-year-old told the Guardian, “I just go on, and I’m going to go on until I fall over, I’ve always got something to do and I’m going to do it. Artists don’t retire … I like working, what else is there to do?”
David Hockney: Painting and Photography – Annely Juda Fine Art – until 27 June 2015
Photos: Paul Black © Artlyst 2015 All rights reserved