How has Hockney remained inspired to create for 60 years?
I have always loved David Hockney. As a teenager one of the first prints I ever bought was from his exhibition, and he was the subject of one of my A Level art projects.
I didn’t really know why I connected with him as a 18 year old, but I just new that I looked at his work and felt joy. What I can say looking back, is that as a teenager, I had become melancholy, and a bit disconnected with the world. I was losing my own passion for art, partly because I didn’t fit into the boxes that were provided for me at college. I wasn’t given the freedom to create in my way, so I didn’t want to create at all. Combined with the challenges of being a teenager, of figuring out your identity, I just felt lost.
When I looked at Hockney’s work, I saw a way of creating that did feel right to me - all sorts of colours that didn’t make ‘sense’. Trees didn’t have to be green and perspective didn’t have to be accurate. He played with his subjects in such a way that he made them come to life through his eyes. And through his eyes, the world felt inspiring to me.
This week I went to see his current exhibition, using state of the art projections and a revolutionary sound system, so you feel totally immersed in his world. I was reminded of how I felt when I was younger - but this time I was seeing this through the eyes of someone that knows the importance of that feeling of joy in simple things.
Here’s what Hockney shared in the exhibition that I felt highlight how a creative mind can help us connect with joy:
That we must look, and be interested in what’s around us, to feel inspired. We can’t just sit and wait for inspiration to come to us
That we should play against what’s expected, and what’s been done before. Just because it’s the way it’s always been done, it doesn’t mean it’s ‘right’
That we should see when something doesn’t work, and try something new, even if we’ve poured hours and days into creating it
Hockney remains inspired because of this perspective, but I think in a very basic way, it’s because he pays attention to what’s around him.
In terms of what art can do for us, this quote says it all “In art, new ways of seeing mean new ways of feeling; you can’t divorce the two, as we are now aware, you cannot have time without space and space without time.”
Check out this exhibition at Aviva Studios, to hear from Hockney as you watch how he experiments with perspective, uses photography as a way of ‘drawing with a camera’, captures the passing of time in his polaroid collages and the joy of spring on his iPad – and shows us why only paint can properly convey the hugeness of the Grand Canyon.
