The Hockney movie.
Tags: sketchbook, Hudl, Phoenix Picturehouse, Oxford, Hockney Movie, Hockney Live
Date: 26 November 2014 10:59:51
David Hockney is a national treasure. Let's start with that as a premise. You don't have to like him, you don't have to agree with him, you don't have to enjoy or understand his artwork but few artists - if any - have managed to ease themselves in and out of fashion, to take on so many styles and media and to stay at the top of their game as well as he has, for as long as he has. David Hockney is someone the UK should be very proud of as one of their most creative sons.
As I'm a touch screen artist you might be expecting this to be an ode to his work on Apple devices but this isn't the case. Director Randall Wright has created a well rounded portrait of Hockney which focuses on both a wide range of his work and the most intimate part of anyone's soul: the desire to love and be loved.
Going into the film, reading the advance notes, you could be forgiven for anticipating a sombre piece. The comments alongside the movie suggest a intimate portrait of a man who has suffered personal loss - most horribly during the Aids epidemic of the 80s - and at times rejection at the hands of the established art community, friends and lovers. This is certainly a part of the film but the whole story is far more balanced: it captures the loss but also the joy of confident creativity. In two hours it was never going to tell the whole story - some important pieces of artwork never feature and some, like The Bigger Splash, I would love to have seen extra time given to (I eagerly await a DVD in the hope that extras and deleted scenes might give me more to enjoy and to think about).
Viewers are promised 'the definitive exploration of one of the most important artists of his generation'. This is, and isn't, the case. We see him throughout his long and extraordinary career and those lucky enough to be at the premier were granted an additional 45 minutes of live Q and A in his L.A. studio but Hockney isn't a man so easily summed up. This is an entrancing look at his life and his loves and for that should be essential viewing not only for any aspiring artist but for anyone who has ever asked an artist the question 'how do you know what to paint?'
On the way out of the cinema (the very lovely Phoenix Picturehouse in Oxford) I found myself looking at the colours and the objects which surrounded me in a different way and I wished that Google Glass could somehow morph into Hockney's eye (and, of course, we all know what the glass frames would look like from a design perspective). To see the world as fearlessly, as colourfully and as specifically as he does would be a wonderful thing. It's possible that this film is as close as I'll get (although it did also make me want to dig out my Bigger Picture DVD as soon as I arrived home).
It also made me want to paint the picture below on the train. Inspiring stuff, I look forward to seeing the movie again.
I was lucky enough to attend the Fresh Flowers exhibition in Paris and even luckier to have been asked to teach Royal Academy staff members how to draw on an iPad using the app that David uses yet in the Royal Academy exhibition it was the multi camera time and space images he made which excited me the most. I could (and did) sit and watch them for hours as they were so all encompassing and engaging. The film, while not similar in terms of scope or subject matter, I also didn't want to end.