Annely Juda Fine Art, London Paul Kasmin Gallery, New York
Catalogue Essay
“If you see the world as beautiful, thrilling and mysterious, as I think I do, then you feel quite alive.” - David Hockney
“People said that the new paintings had a three-dimensional look. I feel that is true, in the sense that they have two spatial dimensions – vertical and horizontal – and that the third dimension is of course time, the time you give a picture when you look at it and it pulls you in and moves you round and you therefore become aware of taking time.” (The artist in That’s the way I see it, London, 1993, p. 234)
The undulating, vibrant forms of David Hockney’s The Eighteenth V.N. Painting transcend the boundaries of both space and time, capturing the visceral experience of abstraction. One of the twenty-six works that comprise the artist’s Very New Paintings series from 1992, the present work radiates with kaleidoscopic energy, inviting the viewer to perceive and mold his own animated, exotic landscape.
Both a departure from and continuation of Hockney’s prior practice, The Very New Paintings are a material and theoretical manifestation of the artist’s experience in theatre and opera set design, synthesized with imagery of the bright, dynamic California landscapes so dominant in Hockney’s work in the 1960’s and early 1970s. Echoing the abstract landscapes that Hockney created for productions of Die Frau ohne Schatten and Turandot, The Eighteenth V.N. Painting also challenges traditional concepts of depth perception and perspective in a manner evocative of early modern masters such as Pablo Picasso and Vincent Van Gogh in his Van Gogh’s Bedroom in Arles (Paris, Musée d’Orsay).
Hockney’s painterly experimentation in The Very New Paintings partially derives from his philosophical awareness of “...nature both in its physical forms and in its invisible forces” (ibid, p. 236). Highly stylized, the bold, spherical contours found in The Eighteenth V.N. Painting awaken the senses, balancing the work’s intangible, seductive energy with an impressive exploration of textural elements. Informed by Hockney’s earlier fax drawings in which textural representations supplanted the use of color and form, the present painting unifies these visual and transcendent elements, suggesting corporeality without certainty; the artist implicitly welcomes the viewer into the painting, encouraging an exploration of the “internal landscape.”
David Hockney (b. 1937) is one of the most well-known and celebrated artists of the
20th and 21st centuries. He works across many mediums, including painting, collage,
and more recently digitally, by creating print series on iPads. His works show semi-
abstract representations of domestic life, human relationships, floral, fauna, and the
changing of seasons.
Hockney has exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Royal
Academy of Arts in London, and the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, among many
other institutions. On the secondary market, his work has sold for more than $90
million.
