OUGD402 - Studio Brief 1 - Visit to Saltaire & David Hockney's Gallery

At the weekend I decided to have a trip to Saltaire as I knew that there was a David Hockney gallery there and I have always been a big fan of his work. The building itself was a vast salt mill, with a seemingly endless facade of windows. In fact most of the town has this beautiful victorian architecture which creates a quaint picturesque village. In fact there was lots of cool shops there selling all sorts of art prints which was really inspiring in itself.

Once in the gallery I was struck by the naive simplicity of some of Hockney's etchings and pen and ink drawings. When I thought of Hockney before visiting the gallery I thought of large vivid paintings so I was surprised to see this kind of work. Looking close at the etchings, he used lots of different techniques of cross hatching, some of them very precise cross hatching that almost looked digitally done.

This was a self portrait that I particularly liked because of the energy of the lines that have been used to shape and shade the face. Also the way that he seems to stare at you with his large dark eyes makes it quite a captivating piece. 

Then he combined these naive styled etchings with pops of bright colour which gives a real contemporary feel. I also quite like the patterns that have been used in the background - the square striped pattern it gives depth to the piece.

I love this combination of type and image, making the type look like it is sat within a room. It is quite interesting as you hardly ever see this subject matter of drawing - a drawing of an exhibition - so it makes me curious to know what the purpose of this illustration. Was it to inform, or maybe it was simply to create an abstract image.

This was definitely my favourite piece in the whole gallery purely because of the textures that he has created within it. The red background is created out of an old street map which creates lots of interesting shapes. Then drawing on top of this adds drama to the piece, especially as all the other elements of the drawing are grey or black.