David Hockney

David Hockney was born on July 9, 1937 in Bradford, England. He is a painter, photographer, printmaker, and all around artist. He attended school at the Bradford School of Art and then at the Royal College of Art in London. While attending school at The Royal College of Art, he was exhibited in a show named "Young Contemporaries" which is said to have brought the onset of British Pop Art to the art community. Hockney has been described as one of the leading artists of the Pop Art movement because of his paintings color scheme and topics of interest. He has also referenced his homosexuality in many of his works as well. He traveled to America where he met a high profile art dealer named John Kasmin and soon met up with Andy Warhol while he was in New York. He traveled to California and discovered a place of incredible interest to him and he soon moved there. But, while he was there he became inspired by the many different types of swimming pools that littered the West Coast and soon started up a series on swimming pools.

Although, the works that I am interested in from his are his photo collages, where he put together many polaroids and created scenes with them. He photographed many highways, people, spaces, and random objects and put together many collages. He called this series of photomontages "Joiners". He worked on this work from the 1970-1986, not exclusively, but he did concentrate a lot on this series of photographs. He loved the way they looked and the grid patterns that formed from them. He was a lover of Cubism and it shows in this work. He saw photographers in the 60s start shooting with wide angles lenses and disliked the distortion that they created, so he created this technique and aesthetic to show a better perspective in these photographs.

I enjoy his work and it now goes along with what I am trying to do. I am creating almost life size self portraits with this cut and pasted style. I want to make them life size, because I am life size and the art will bring a stronger presence in my opinion when displayed at life size. They will consist of many photographs and won't always be symmetrical. The sides might of the photograph won't always match up is what i am trying to get at. Hopefully, I can take this very far and will be able to create huge images that will intimidate and require people to think.

Websites:

Website: http://www.hockneypictures.com/home.php
Gallery: http://www.saltsmill.org.uk/
Interview: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/johntusainterview/hockney_transcript.shtml