Why hello! Long time, I know, and I can only apologise but let me give you a quick little recap. I didn’t care about blogging anymore. Very cruel but let me continue, as you know the last time, I have updated my work It was about some art project about pieces inspired be Geoly conception, and from those teasers I hope you could tell, but after that I honestly just got too busy to write on my blog.
And so instead, I ended up writing on a huge PowerPoint document with just about everything I would have put onto my blog, and a lot more, in one place for the entire project, so soon will find a way to upload that to the website, but I digress. I’m also hoping to begin making reels and more content! It won't be as high effort sadly, but I’m hoping to game the algorithm a little bit better compared to last time with middle of the lane, boring and unengaging content. I might also do a rebrand since KBG isn't exactly something that I feel like is what I want to be making next.
But hey, I’m not here to update you all on my next plans, (yet) but instead here to work on my new project! Now this one is called “Will Draw for Food” which is project that needs to be about both food, and drawing, as it says in the title, and very luckily we have some good little pointers of inspiration that we can use from a list, so I wanted to go through a couple that I find interesting. Interesting enough to use for my project? From skimming through probably not but I want to taste my pallet here before telling you the first thought process of what idea I had for this project. Also, blog posts will be a lot more prominent so do be ready for that, same with linking sources since that’s something I forgot an awful lot, but anyways! Back to the topic at hand.
Now aforementioned, I didn’t feel like any of these artists really clicked with what I wanted to do, for I personally feel like my kind of style is simply just not what they would do. To combat this, I picked out the one that I reconsider and went forth with such, and luckily, I knew of this man's existence because of both his incredibly famous paintings, and because his Net Worth is around 50-150 million pounds. That’s significant to me because that’s both a lot of money and I also look up rich artists in my own time to sieve at how they are rich, and I am not. That is a joke, but anyways, let's look at one of the greats that are still alive.
David Hockney
David Hockney, recognise the name? That’s because I have done an analysis of some of his pieces, but it seems that he continues to surprise me with even more that he creates. For a little background on this living legend, he was born on the 9th of July in 1937, raised in Yorkshire, attended Bradford college to then got the royal college of art in London, where after he created many pieces of photography, paintings and is known for his earlier work of paintings of queer men in swimming pools in an almost pastel-coloured paints, along tin his work on landscapes with more vibrant colours. This isn't a look at the person themselves though, this is more about the paintings themselves, so let's look at one.
"Fruit on a Bench, 6th, 7th, 8th March 2014" from "82 Portraits and 1 Still-Life", 2014
This piece is an acrylic on canvas, along with being as a part of a set of 82 other paintings in this series which consists of entirely people with these same blue and terrorise backgrounds and floors, besides the final 82, which is fruits on a bench.
Now, before actually getting into the piece themselves I will say this series is a hit or miss but both agreed absolutely not the best has done, as the construction of these are in 3 short 6-hour bursts, and with this people have talked about how there isn't empathy or feeling from one whilst another is more puzzled about his details in clothes rather than form and not being able to even recognise some of the people in the paintings. This is different from the final piece though, in which I have not heard either of these comment on, as it is simply a blue bench with an assortment of fruits, although lemons can also be classed as a berry.
Personally, I do enjoy this painting as it, for me, is an emotional piece for the final of this overall normal exhibition, with the choice of fruits rather than anything more. What draws my eye the most is the leaves on the bell pepper falling off, which shows that it could be him being tired for doing portraits in a subtle way, since he hasn’t done portraits in a long while before this, or that he wanted to go back to something else as a change of speed, but that is neither here or there. Enough rambling though, let's talk about the painting itself.
Who, What, When Where and Why?
So, let's start how I usually do, who made this? The only person what I can tell that was the influence of this is David himself, which obviously worked on the painting itself and how it looks in a stylistic matter, but I could argue that doing one of these bursts at the end of it all could've tired him out and made him not happy with continuing, since as people have said that the pieces are rushed with no emotion, this final piece could be a reflection from going through so many people, roughly 24, in a single sitting, leading to these slightly dying fruits.
What makes up this piece? This is continues with the theme of the rest with a twist in its concept, to start with its same green and blue backgrounds with this having a particularly nice blue, and an aging coral of a tortious, with a blue bench in the bottom middle to an angle, with a verity of fruits, and particularly an orange bell pepper with Leafs falling off of its stem. Other smaller details include how there's splodges of blue on the tomatoes, the rushed and not fully painted background and the almost unusual look of the bench, as if there's something wrong but not too sure what exactly.
When was this piece made? It was made across three days, from the 6th to the 8th of march in 2014, which could be a statement of him returning to this same piece as a way to either warm up to paint the roughly 20 people per day, or as a treat in the end which he adds just a touch more until its complete. This could be why we have a different blue for the background compared the bench, or how some of the bench's shadows on top look interesting, but I can't say what's fact and what's fiction.
Where was this painting painted? This was painted in his studio back in California, in which where he flew out or invited a bunch of the people close to his life to be. I could say that he chose to do it here because it is where he started his “true” career, and wanted to do it where it all started, with this series could be a gift to the people around him that helped him grow into the artist he is, along with these fruits, which could be a symbolism for his homosexuality due to his history of making queer art, or in a more direct way as to say these are the foods he ate to grow into the man he is.
Now, why? Why was this all painted? Now, from as vie mentioned before I have concluded that since this is very late into his career and is at such an old age, he wanted to create a bunch of pieces for the people that helped him since he was young, or was just generally around him that David had a connection with, and this final piece could be a piece for himself, as a reminder of where he came from as one of his stunts back in college was to paint a diploma rather than a nude model he had Infront of him as a stand to the educational system of the time, and this could be reference that there was somebody there but instead leaning into the still life trope of fruits. This is, once again, all theory though.
Do I think it's good or bad? And why?
Now, do I personally like this piece myself? I figured that I didn’t ask this enough in my analyses before, well I did but not to the quality that I personally like. I do like this piece, both for the story that it tells me as my own made up story, along with it being a half-decent painting of fruits on a bench and the colours look appealing to me, not to mention that the rushing of this painting gives it a slightly off tilde look that I find visually interesting.
Now, I don’t think I would use this as an inspiration for my own pieces next in a direct way, for I have a more interesting ideas that I want to focus on rather than simple paintings made for Hockney to get any more money than he needs, and probably wants. Though, some attributes might carry over like the usage of bold colours and an unorthodox style but that’s not here or there yet.
Right, so It would be very unfair if I looked at a single one of his paintings and made my entire judgement off of that for if IU would use him for inspiration yet, but I also don’t want to be spending hours of my time writing this for, once again, nobody to read this unless I show it to an employer, so let's do one more, and this one I think is a lot more visually interesting and actually tells a deeper story from what I can tell.
“Tea Painting in an Illusionistic Style” 1961
This is an oil painting on a custom-made canvas, made exactly right to fit the exact subject. This was because it was in retaliation of focusing to paint depth into his paintings, so instead of learning how to so he could join in with the rest, he instead made the canvas the exact size. This painting is specifically of a humanoid figure inside of a typhoon themed box, but with one of the spellings of “Tea” on the side of said box being spelt incorrectly.
When I was looking at this painting, I was honestly supersede to first know that this was a canvas shaped just like the painting inside of it, for even through it was an example done over 60 years ago, you simply don’t see things like this today due to people leaning into making the illusion of depth, rather than Hockney's desire to paint flatly whilst still giving what the masses desired, but I will say from looking at this I really do like this and I'll explain why later in this
Who, What, When Where and Why?
Well, who made this? The only person that was directly painting this was David himself, which explains why it looks the way it is, for in his college days he wasn’t as interested in a clean aesthetic but instead a lot more flowy, less focused on clean shapes and instead we have this messy looking piece, which I think looks amazing.
What is this made from? Now I find this interesting, because this is multiple handmade canvases that have all been joined together. This is because that Davido dint like the idea of painting perspective into his worm and so he found the better idea of fitting the frame to the work rather than fitting the work to the frame, but to comment what's inside of the frame we have an oil painting of al the panels of an open ty-photo box from a top left angle in a style that’s messy and yet still holds its shape. This is all correct until the “TAE” on the side, due to David being too tired to realise such happened. Inside of this box though, or on the outside, is a painting of a humanoid figure sitting down with an unrealistic figure and a colour pallet o what seems to be a gradient of raw to overdone roasted ham, bare for us to view. Some notable other details include the faint white lines at the bottom, which show the perspective of the painting despite David saying he didn’t like to do such and the marking on the top of the lid seem to be upside down letters, smeared to say “2’ DFFN”.
When was this made? This was made in the 1960’s, 1961 to be precise, back when David was still in college. Now, this has influenced the piece in two main ways, first of all is because of pop art. Pop art was beginning to rear its head in the mid to late 50’s in America, and since David moved there shortly after we could tell that he had an affixation for the country, so he could have made this inspired by their movement. Another pointer that influenced this piece was around the 1960’s Aswell, there was a big push in art to have perspective, to look three dimensional, and Davids reaction to this was to engineer a way to made something that could have the idea of perspective without him having to actually do it, since has rehearsed that he does not like it, which becomes more prevalent in other pieces over time.
Where was this made? This was made in the Royal College of Art, which is in London. To my Suprise, this did indeed make a difference to what he would create, as he has been quoted that “tea packets piled up with the cans and tubes of paint ... and I just thought, in a way it's like still-life paintings for me ... There was a packet of Typhoo tea, a very ordinary popular brand of tea, so I used it as a motif.” This was in the studios in which where he worked on his paintings, but besides the environment of the creative process, when it comes to city-wide cultural movements I do not know what was happening, nor will I research for, well, let's be honest I have been working on this for days because I don’t like writing much unless I’m in the mood, and research takes up a lot of my time when it comes to posts. I digress though, apologises for getting off topic.
Now, why did he make this? David made these pieces because he was put into a show called “Young Contemporaries”, a student show to highlight the ideas young artists at the college could create and show, and a young Hockney was OfCourse interested in such and made this! The title of the show and probably the briefing he was given to make something contemporary affected his artistic process throughout this piece.
Do I think it's good or bad? And why?
Now, to finally comment on my main concern, do I like this? Yes! And I will tell you why, I think this is a very cleaver piece, especially for its age, and a creative response to people's infatuation of perspective and encourages artists after to think freely, figuratively along with physically. I also really like the use of less detailed pieces and instead a flowy, messy look which I find quite interesting overall.
And because of this, I would like to use this as a basis for what I will be making next. I want to take that kind of philosophy of a messier, effortless kind of look with these unorganized brush strokes, along with creative, and somewhat unorthodox, responses to prompts or general ideas that are being pushed at the time.
Overall, though, I think David Hockney is a talented artist of his time, with very visually interesting pieces in his older work, whilst his newer work looks to be a bit more basic and not as favoured by critiques of the modern age. I will be using some of these ideas and possibly motifs for my future work but let us see.
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