Hockney.Current

Ok, so by this point you all know I love art. I love museums. And a classic, perpetual favorite artist of mine is, David Hockney. 

Since I've been a girl I always have to stop and look at "Garrowby Hill, 1998" when I go to the MFA in Boston. 


The colors, the movement and the visible yet controlled hand of the artist has always drawn me in. Hockney of course is also a well known portrait artist and if I had the right connections and unlimited funds I would commission a portrait for all of my family members. We could all be frozen under Hockney's colorful gaze and unearth a smirk, sly smile or unending stare. 

Knowing all of this when I saw that the National Gallery Victoria was hosting a solo exhibition of Hockney it was immediately on my list of an outing to do solo. A couple of days ago Matt had the afternoon free and the sun was shining so off I went. Let me tell you the exhibition did not disappoint. The colors were of course stunning and way the show was installed and drew you in and out of corridors and made my curatorial heart go pitter patter. 

Perhaps the most surprising and fascinating aspect of the show was the manner in which most of his landscapes were created. They were "painted" on a iPad. Can you stand it!? An iPad. Here is an artist, aged 79 showing up and creating magnificent landscapes with the touch of a stylus pen. There were even a few time lapse videos in the gallery so you could watch the landscape unfold in front of your eyes. The layering and dots suddenly become for example, a very recognizable painting of Yosemite's El Capitan. 


iPhone "sketches"


Of course, as I mentioned before Hockney's wheelhouse is portraiture and this exhibition does not disappoint with 82 portraits & 1 still life a collection, an oeuvre of portraits all painted between 2013-2016 and each subject sitting only for three days. The scope is astounding and the continuity is enviable. 




This show left me with an impression which I have not experienced in awhile. The colors, the whimsy and beautiful candor which Hockney sprinkles throughout his work got my wheels turning. It left me with a sense of wonder and magic. I felt transported. And isn't that a wonderful way to spend an afternoon. 




 


 


 


 


 


 



 

 

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Street art. Museums. Aquariums. Lunch dates. Coffee. Lots of coffee. These are a few of our favorite things thus far in Melbourne. Staying in a beautiful cottage tucked down a side street we can walk to the cute, funky seaside neighborhood of St. Kilda. Again the sunshine has been alluding us and my goodness I should have packed more than one (!) pair of pants but other than waiting for "summer" to fully appear we are enjoying our adventures on foot, by tram, and if Matthew drives by car (the left side driving is a spatial disaster for me). 


 

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Boys on the beach. Waiheke island. Auckland, New Zealand. November. 2016

Don't be too fooled by the beautiful blue sky. This was our one truly bluebird sky day with warm temperatures while we were on the north island of New Zealand. But what a day it was! We took a ferry ride out to Waiheke Island where we walked through the town,searched for shells on the beach and had some of the most delicious gelato out of a converted shipping container. 


 


 


 

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Playing catch up. This is going to be a short blurb seeing as I cannot seem to get anything to load properly. Blerg. 


 


 

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warm sunshine. cool breezes. leaf peeping. we are soaking in as much of the delicious fall weather that we can. especially since we jet off to New Zealand and Australia next week where it will be lovely to get back into shorts. but I also now that on the flip side of our epic adventure, a New England winter will be waiting for us.


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