November 11 2016 – March 13 2017
David Hockney has an exhibition of the last decade of his work in the temporary exhibition space at the National Gallery of Victoria. It is everything I hoped it would be and more. Most of the art was created on and Ipad in a package called Brushes. He has worked from that to then print his work in large multi panel works that area lmost life scale.
You enter the space with red walls and a wall paper like look of maybe a hundred artworks unframed and pinned abutting each other around the outside wall with four large pillars in the centre space that are bedecked with either large portrait layout flat screens of sets of Iphones on which annimations or sequences of his works are displayed.
The second room is a dsplay space on which a famous forest scene he painted is reproduced on all four walls that makes it look life size
There is a long almost palace like room again in a rich red and the walls are lined with portraits of people in David Hockney’s life. They were painted in three days each and there are 82 people done in the last three years.
The feature of this exhibition I loved the most and found almost enthralling were the stroke by stroke creations of artworks. On Flat screens in various places the Brushes app used to create the work can be set to replay te construction of the artwork andyou can sit there and watch as line upon line colour upon colour a final work of art is created as you watch. I found it lots of fun to stand and watch in wonder from some basic lines through to a highly detailed artwork that emerged.
Being from Canberra I have now stood for hours in front of David’s Grand Canyon in the National Galllery of Austrralia. I have seen several documentaries about various aspects of his work and was rapt to be able to spendtime with his most recent decade’s work.
http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/exhibition/david-hockney/#exhi-tab-about
stephenrrandall 