Pop Artist, David Hockney's Three Pieces

David Hockney: Pop Artist

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Introduction

Pop culture holds different meanings depending on the context of use. However, pop culture is the society’s way of life. It is characterized by beliefs, manners, duties, approaches, and perceptions that describe people. It is determined by the relations among people in their daily activities; their way of wearing, their dialect, their ceremonies, and their cultural foods are all examples of pop culture. Pop culture involves the growth of products such as music, art, literature, and fashion among others, for consumption by a majority of the society. Accessibility of the content is a major characteristic of the pop culture.

David Hockney is one of the most powerful British painters who use pop culture elements in his art. He is well recognized for his sequential paintings of portraits of friends, verdant landscapes, and swimming pools. He emerged in an artistic climate that allowed mass culture and consumerism. The British culture was being exchanged by a less discriminatory view that acknowledged values of all forms of period, culture, and fabrication. By the time Hockney emerged, his predecessors like Richard Hamilton had paved the way for his type of art, which made it easy for people to appreciate it. Also, the changing nature of the education in the British culture assisted him in obtaining training in his career. David Hockney’s work is a perfect example of pop culture because unlike most of the other pop artists, he did several things that separated him from them.

Hockney played an important role in reviving symbolic painting in an elegance that referenced the photographic language of advertising. Unlike the rest of the pop artists, Hockney was passionate with cubism, and his art joined a number of scenes to produce a compound view like the Grand Canyon, where there was a task on depth observation. Hockney insisted on a personal subject matter for his work; which depicted extracts from his personal life and that of his friends. David also believes that image should depend on the artist’s direct interpretations of nature. This made his art pure, even as he exploited painting methods to mimic accurate photographic weight. Therefore, David Hockney is the ideal point of reference for an artist who uses elements of pop culture in his work.

Elements of pop culture are subject to rapid change because they are dependent on immediate and contemporary aspects of our lives. Pop culture is the totality of philosophies, attitude, perceptions, images, and other occurrences contained by a majority of a culture. In an extremely high-tech world where people are brought together by the universal media, certain standards change rapidly. Pop culture mirrors views that are held communally and impacts people’s routine life. David Hockney’s work paid attention to the current elements of pop culture at the time they were created. Pop art theft of everything that energized modernity, its enthusiastic embrace of technology, and consumerism did away with the abstract expressionism aspirations. The changes brought back realism in the world of art.

David Hockney’s 3 Pieces

A Bigger Splash (1967)

David Hockney’s art has depicted several elements of culture like modernism. A Bigger Splash (1967) shows his dependence on the element of modernism. The element of modernism was from the impact of the post-war years during the evolution of the British community. Hockney had enthusiasm for American culture, which saw him use it in his paintings. His painting, A Bigger Splash engages simple art, which was an idea other pop artist had defied. The position of the diving board at the base of the canvas seems like an invitation into the picture, thus absorbing the spectator. The art relied on Modernist concepts that were counteracted by the diving board in the painting because all other forms are composed of verticals and horizontals.

Hockney’s career in art and this painting demonstrates his reliance on the current pop culture, which was Americanization. His art provides a unique insight between the British and American Art. The painting was a success due to the widespread consumption of acrylic paint that was part of the new and modern artistic medium. Hockney thought that as a fast-dehydrating material, the modern standard was more suited to bring out the hot, dry sceneries of California than the outdated oil paints that were normally used. The splash was created on the basis of a photograph of a swimming pool. The artist was fascinated by the knowledge that a photograph could capture split-second events and he pursued to reconstruct it in a painting. The painting shows the enthusiasm of the splash, contrasting to the geometry of the household, the edge of the pool, the trees and the diving board that are all well arranged in the grid enclosing the splash. The dynamism provides the painting with a deliberate incoherent influence that defines Hockney’s elegance. The impact is of inauthenticity drawing on artistic pop art and fusing it with cubism that is characterized by the use of geometric planes and shapes.

We Two Boys Together Clinging (1961)

The painting is that of two figures that are bound together. It deals openly with homosexuality, it has heart-shaped forms and the tormented scribbling of the word ‘never’ to emphasize Hockney’s special connection to the theme. The two figures are believed to be him and Cliff Richard, whom he had a crush on. The painting was the first to speak his homoeroticism, a significant theme in his art. Minor flat lines of color run from one character to the other to signify the stimulating duty amid them. The title and image were based on a description of an accident in the newsprint. These foundations in pop culture and definitive poetry presented the artist a means to discourse same-sex relationships in a manner that did not resort to caricature. This clearly shows how the element of pop culture was bound to rapid change and how it was influenced by everyday life. Cliff Richard was a pop star who was created in an American character, and therefore, represented the process of Americanization. Exalting Richard in an erotic way emphasized on the speedy revolution of the British culture that was as a result of the US invasion. The painting suggests that Hockney rejoices about the modification of the culture that is portrayed by the kissing of the figures in the art. The theme of the painting showed how much the pop culture had influenced the artists’ art, which in turn impacted on the pop culture and what the paintings expressed. Hockney made declarative statements in support of sexual freedom that influenced the ideologies around homosexuality.

Doll Boy (1960-61)

The art openly acknowledges homosexuality at a time when it was still criminalized, which illustrated that Hockney was a pioneering figure in British art. The Doll boy painting had an intense abstract expressionist style that is present in all the current works. The style is used to assist his obsessive exploration of this highly personal theme. The painting, however, revealed Hockney’s reliance on American precedents like the homoerotic content in his art was interpreted to be part of a discourse set in motion by Johns, Rauschenberg, and Warhol subsequently. The homosexuality theme contributed to him moving to California. In America, the liberated environment influenced his style of representation, though his themes did not change. Much of the pictures in his paintings suggested they had been derived from magazines. The pop culture in America was what impacted the change in Hockney’s representation.

David Hockney’s artwork as discussed above has similarities as well as differences. The three pieces illustrate pop culture but in different dimensions. They all show that the artist was great at his work and other than setting the pace for an American based art existence in Britain; they demonstrate hi...