VENICE, CA.- L.A. Louver announces a solo exhibition of iPad drawings by British artist David Hockney. Titled The Arrival of Spring, the exhibition includes 20 new prints of East Yorkshire’s bucolic landscape.
“Some people say landscape is a dead art form. I have a different opinion. Drawing is an ancient thing. It’s 30,000 years old. Why are they saying we’ll give it up?” – David Hockney
From photographic collages to facsimile drawings, and offset printing with a copier machine to renderings made on a computer, David Hockney has enjoyed a lifelong fascination with using new technology to make pictures. Earlier experimentations were limited to the confines in which the machines were housed. Landscapes were sketched en plein air, and translated onto a computer screen upon return to the studio. This process changed in 2010 when Hockney acquired his first iPad. The portable device, together with a drawing application, provided Hockney with the accessibility to draw at his leisure in any location, without the need of additional materials and supplies. With this newfound tool, all color and mark making effects imaginable were at his fingertips, and quite literally so. The iPad and app enabled the artist to create his subjects with the touch of his index finger and without restriction. “It’s all drawing.” said Hockney. “It’s a new medium for drawing, the iPad, it’s like an endless sheet of paper.”
Capturing the subtle shifts in landscape that occurs between the bleakness of winter and the fecundity of spring, Hockney made these drawings between January 2011 and June 2011, and again in December 2011. The varying complexities of each work provide insight into the mind’s eye of the artist. Revisiting the same locations throughout the changing season, Hockney treated every approach as a renewed experience, instilling his drawings with a liveliness that transcends the physical realities of the landscape. Hockney conveys this sense of exuberance through his use of vibrant colors, coupled with gestural and varied line work that pulsates with unrestrained energy. Of the works in the exhibition, 16 are printed on single sheets of paper (55 x 41 ½ in. [139.7 x 105.4 cm]), while four are on a larger format and mounted on four sheets of Dibond (overall: 93 x 70 in. [236.2 x 177.8 cm]). Each print emanates luminosity from within, a trademark of the device with which it was created.
Works from Hockney’s iPad series were first shown in the 2012-2013 exhibition A Bigger Picture, at the Royal Academy, London, which traveled to the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Spain and Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany. Subsequently, iPad prints were also included in A Bigger Exhibition at the de Young Museum, San Francisco, in 2014.
The Arrival of Spring marks Hockney’s 15th solo exhibition at L.A. Louver since 1978. Past L.A. Louver exhibitions of Hockney’s East Yorkshire landscapes include Looking at Landscape / Being in Landscape (1998), Hand Eye Heart: Watercolors of the East Yorkshire Landscape (2005), The East Yorkshire Landscape (2007) and Drawing in a Printing Machine (2009).
