My opinion of Hockney’s work was polarized by this RA exhibition. The garish painting, the ipad drawings and the canvas-stacking overload of much of this show had gone day-glo, overblown. The film and the photographic collages, however, were like fresh air breathing through so much stuck paint. Space and time were lifted, expanded, filled and dancing because of framing that thwarted the one-eyed camera view. Turning seasons and waving tree-tops give you the bigger picture, the one where sight is corporeal and turns you inside out. Enveloped, interconnected, loved. Hockney’s research into looking with technology is fusing this work.
Header image: The Four Seasons, Woldgate Woods, 2011, by David Hockney; film still.
