David Hockney: 82 Portraits and 1 Still-life Review
In an interview, the British artist David Hockney said: “I’m not bored yet. I’m still curious. I’m still excited by pictures. I say that when I’m in the studio, I feel like I’m 30. But when I leave it, I know I’m 80. So naturally, I stay in here. Wouldn’t you rather be 30?”
Curiosity. Excitement. The studio as a sanctuary, a timeless space. That sentiment resonates deeply with me. I have often found that art—whether writing, photography, or painting—has the ability to suspend time, drawing the creator into a state of deep focus where everyday concerns and the passage of time seem to disappear. When I visited the 2018 exhibition 82 Portraits and 1 Still-life at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, I felt this sensation not just in contemplating Hockney’s work, but in how his artistic world enveloped me. I kept returning to my exhibition photographs as if each glance could unveil another layer of the experience. It begged the question: what made this exhibition so memorable? The phrase “It’s all in the presentation” seemed to hold the answer.
View of the exhibition: What’s it like to sit for David Hockney?
David Hockney is a British artist known for his work in pop art and portraiture. A master of many mediums—painting, photography, and printmaking—he is celebrated for his bold use of color and a playful yet structured approach to composition. His work carries an immediacy, an intimacy that invites you to step closer while maintaining a sense of grandeur. From The Splash to A Bigger Grand Canyon, Hockney’s pieces are instantly recognizable, not just for their visual style but for the way they vibrate with life.
The exhibition at LACMA was deceptively simple: eighty-two portraits of individuals invited to his Los Angeles studio between 2013 and 2016. Each was painted on an identical 48″ by 36″ (121 x 91 cm) canvas in acrylic, each requiring roughly twenty hours—three days—to complete. With his decades of experience, it seemed as if Hockney could have painted the sitters blindfolded. The subjects varied in background, age, and gender, yet the paintings themselves, when viewed individually, did not strike me as revolutionary. They were skillful, colorful, and engaging—but none alone took my breath away.
Only when I stepped back, allowing my eyes to absorb the collection as a whole, I felt the power of the exhibit. The repetition of form, the uniformity of scale, and the vibrant consistency of Hockney’s signature yellow armchair against the striking blue-green background created a rhythm, a visual symphony. The Venetian red walls of the exhibition space amplified this effect, making the canvases appear as though they were pulsating with energy, almost leaping from their background. It was an experience of presence, a moment where the entire room seemed to breathe with the artist’s vision.
And yet, this realization led me to a more philosophical question: Would another artist’s work, arranged in precisely the same manner, have left the same impact? If every detail—the size, the colors, the sequence—had remained unchanged, but the painter was someone else, would I still have felt the same resonance? This blurred the line between presentation and content. Perhaps presentation is not just part of the content but an extension of it, an inseparable element that shapes perception.
I could go on, but I’ll stop. Perhaps, as with all art, the true impact reveals itself in the spaces between observation and memory—where curiosity keeps pulling us back for one more look.
CY Twombly Making The past Present, review.
January 2019