Artist Research - David Hockney

David Hockney is well known for his collages and paintings of Los Angeles swimming pools and is considered one of the most influential British artists of the 20th century. He moved from London to Los Angeles in the 60s and this is where he he painted his famous swimming pool paintings. He then began working in photography creating his photo collages he called 'Joiners', where he would take several photos of the a item at different angles and heights ad would then join them together to try and create a complete image.

In addition to pools, Hockney painted the interiors and exteriors of California homes. In 1970, this led to the creation of his first 'joiner' an assemblage of Polaroid photos laid out in a grid. Although this medium would become one of his claims to fame, he stumbled upon it by accident. While working on a painting of a Los Angeles living room, he took a series of photos for his own reference, and fixed them together so he could paint from the image. When he finished he recognised the college  was an art form of itself and began to create more and more.

Hockney's early paints incorporated his literary leanings and he used fragments of poems and quotations from Walt Whitman in his work. This practice and paintings such as We Two Boys Clinging Together, which he created in 1961, were the first nods to his homosexuality in his art.

Hockney was an adept photographer, and he began working with photography more extensively. By the mid 1970s he had all but abandoned painting in favour of projects involving photography and set and costume design for the ballet, opera and theatre. In the late 1980s Hockney had then returned back to painting, primarily painting seascapes, flowers and portraits of loved ones. He also began incorporating technology in his art, creating his first homemade prints on the photocopier in 1986. The marriage of art and technology became an ongoing fascination—he used laser fax machines and laser printers in 1990, and in 2009 he started using the Brushes app on iPhones and iPads to create paintings. A 2011 exhibit at the Royal Museum of Ontario showcased 100 of these paintings.