David Hockney
David Hockney was born 9th July, 1937 in Bradford, West Riding of Yorkshire, England. He attended Bradford School of art from 1953 until 1958, and further on attended the Royal College of Art, London from 1959 up until 1962. Hockney is an English painter, printmaker, photographer, stage designer and draughtsman. David Hockney was and still is an important contributor to the Pop Art Movement of the 1960's till present. He has consistently shown a growing interest in cubism and strong admiration for Pablo Picasso, Matisse and Fragonard. Hockney is the most popular and resourceful British artist of the 21st Century. He is known primarily for his photo collages and paintings of Los Angeles swimming pools. In the 1970’s, he began working in photography.
In the late sixties when a handful of photographers were using cameras with wide-angle lenses to take pictures, Hockney disliked the affect these photographs had on the viewer as he felt they came out rather distorted. After gluing together various shots of the same subject, he had created a composition of a portrait that created a sense of 'moving through a room'. This idea occurred accidently but subsequently, made Hockney stop painting for a period of time to peruse his new style of photography. These new found compositions were frequently arranged in a rectangular grid. Cubism was one of Hockney's major aims and this style of photography helped him achieve his aims. In the early 1980’s, he created one of his first montages of his mother and this really caught the eye of the public. My Mother, (1982) by Hockney, is a photo montage in which Hockney took multiple images of his mother from different perspectives and at different times in order to create such an effect to the viewer’s eye, compiling a ‘complete’ picture from a series of individually photographed details of his mother’s portrait. The idea behind Hockney's grids was to introduce multiple reference points into photography in short to make it cubist, creating a patchwork like, image.
After some time, Hockney became frustrated with the limitations of photography and its 'one eyed' approach, he later returned to painting. Now, at the age of 77, Hockney continues to create and exhibit art. In 2011, he was voted most influential British artist of the 20th Century.
My opinions of the work.
I feel I can relate to Hockney's work as photomontage is a concept of distorting subjects. I feel I can experiement with this idea to produce my own interpretations of Hockney's compositions. Instead of layering my pictures using oblongs, I could use random shapes such as circles and triangles; to produce images with the same effect.
In the late sixties when a handful of photographers were using cameras with wide-angle lenses to take pictures, Hockney disliked the affect these photographs had on the viewer as he felt they came out rather distorted. After gluing together various shots of the same subject, he had created a composition of a portrait that created a sense of 'moving through a room'. This idea occurred accidently but subsequently, made Hockney stop painting for a period of time to peruse his new style of photography. These new found compositions were frequently arranged in a rectangular grid. Cubism was one of Hockney's major aims and this style of photography helped him achieve his aims. In the early 1980’s, he created one of his first montages of his mother and this really caught the eye of the public. My Mother, (1982) by Hockney, is a photo montage in which Hockney took multiple images of his mother from different perspectives and at different times in order to create such an effect to the viewer’s eye, compiling a ‘complete’ picture from a series of individually photographed details of his mother’s portrait. The idea behind Hockney's grids was to introduce multiple reference points into photography in short to make it cubist, creating a patchwork like, image.
After some time, Hockney became frustrated with the limitations of photography and its 'one eyed' approach, he later returned to painting. Now, at the age of 77, Hockney continues to create and exhibit art. In 2011, he was voted most influential British artist of the 20th Century.
My opinions of the work.
I feel I can relate to Hockney's work as photomontage is a concept of distorting subjects. I feel I can experiement with this idea to produce my own interpretations of Hockney's compositions. Instead of layering my pictures using oblongs, I could use random shapes such as circles and triangles; to produce images with the same effect.