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He continues to create, is David Hockney. Now in his late eighties, and more than 60 years into a career that has seen him rise to the very top of the contemporary art pile, Hockney is still painting, constantly exploring, still innovating, and still having shows.

Exploring the Art Display

This exhibition – debuting in a prestigious central London venue for his long-term gallery, his gallery since the 1990s – is packed with paintings that feel freshly completed. The opening room is all eye-searingly bright still lifes: chairs, tables, fruit and flowers. While the themes are traditional and conventional, but nothing Hockney does is that dull, is it?

His chairs reminiscent of Van Gogh glow in bright yellow and vivid purple; his floors present bold contrasts of red, yellow and orange shapes; his fruit depictions are simple, elemental, and youthful. Throughout, he experiments with his concept of “reverse perspective”, an attempt to replicate how we actually see the world, not the static view of life we get in photographs and other paintings. Thus, everything appears unstable and distorted. The legs of his chairs spread out, his tablecloths bend and curve. I don’t think it’s any closer to “real” perspective compared to conventional techniques, but the woozy visual discomfort it creates is engaging and amusing. Garden images are incorporated into certain pieces – little glimpses of a somewhat dull English reality that just make the rest of each work feel brighter and sunnier.

His work is always intriguing … Flowers on a Garden Table, a recent creation.

Changes in Artistic Technique

What is unmistakable is how much shakier these brush marks are than they used to be. Traditional Hockney pieces are confident, so in command of his paintbrush, yet these latest creations are surprisingly erratic. The brush marks are full of quivers and tremors, the lines are irregular and scattered, patches of white base layer are visible throughout. They border on chaotic, yet they are instantly, distinctly, and unmistakably his. It makes for quite an emotional, affecting experience – we’re watching one of the great artists of modern times age in front of our eyes. Compare all this with the very early works featured in a separate exhibition earlier this year and it almost starts to feel like bookends of a career, and the somber reality is somewhat difficult to accept, actually.

Figurative Works: Critical Views

The portrait section is the most controversial aspect. His method for depicting skin has shifted toward a pointillist style over the years resulting in figures that look as if they’re covered in sores. All the figures here are splotchy, red-faced and pockmarked, dabbed with pink and red hues with the exception of one individual who looks somewhat decayed. The depictions resemble lifeless forms more than vibrant, living entities. A triple portrait of a man in a mirror is conceptually interesting, but he just looks like a bloke awkwardly waiting for his wife in a mundane setting. Only the self-portrait here depicting the artist working from a wheelchair is successful, due to its raw openness, but also so funnily self-aware.

Quiet and austere … 8th April 2020, No. 2.

Digital Explorations

Upstairs, the artist persists with his digital creations featuring lunar artworks; predominantly somber and atmospheric, big glowing orbs hovering above blackened landscapes. They emanate tranquility, starkness, and a touch of melancholy. Criticisms of his digital art are unfounded – people complain about the lack of texture and brush marks and human touch, etc., yet in my view, they are impressive – an artist bending new technology to his will, showing that whatever the medium, he preserves his distinctive artistic identity.

The Question of Prolificacy

However, do we really need yet another Hockney exhibition? There have been more than 10 shows of his work in London in the last eight or nine years alone, alongside a major retrospective in Paris a few months back, and this new exhibition isn’t even the last of it. The Serpentine is doing a big one in 2026, as well. I love Hockney, but even I think enough might just be enough.

Nevertheless, I guess we should celebrate him while we can. Here, through these recent pieces with their wobbles and humour and light and color, he demonstrates his ongoing dedication, and his talent endures, decades into his career.