David Hockney Research

As a set task, we had to do some research on David Hockney, who is an English artist and photographer. The main focus is on the piece below, which is titled 'Pealblossm Highway' and is a photomontage of a highway in California, where Hockney lived for a period of his life. The piece looks at the road from both the driver and the passenger perspective. On the left of the piece, it focuses on what the passenger will be looking at out the window, as they aren't focusing on driving, they can look wherever they want out the window, noticing trees, and discarded rubbish on the floor. Whereas on the right-hand side (the driver's side in the US), the drive will be focused on the signs along the road, so the right of the painting is dominated by road signs and markings on the road.

Pearblossom Hwy., 11 - 18th April 1986

The piece is made up of polaroid photos which were taken of the scene from different angles, some straight on, some from above, which give the slightly distorted effect. It also causes there to be slightly changed in tone throughout the piece, as the angle of the photo changes which also changes the light source.

In response to this, I made my own photomontage inspired by David Hockney, I used photos I'd taken of the skeleton which is part of the still life in the studio, I used a mix of photos taken on an iPhone and on a DSLR camera. This has to lead to contrast in tones throughout the piece, I wanted to experiment more with the composition to try and create different layouts with the photos I'd taken.
Another configuration I came up with is the one below.

This one I didn't use a full photo of the skeleton in the background, I feel this piece looks more abstract, but the idea of it being a skeleton still comes across in the piece. I wanted to experiment more with the tone of the piece, using black and white to try and emphasise the shadows of the bones.

The above piece I removed all saturation, which as removed all the colour, which has emphasised the shadows of the bones in the piece.

The next piece, I used the recolour option on a word document and gave the colour 50% black 50% white, which gave the above effect on the photos. 

Linking this back to unit 1, edited the photos to be the primary colours, red yellow and blue, using the 3 colours which can be used to make all the other colours, I like this piece, as by using different colours its emphasised the use of the different photographs. 

For the final experiment, I used the colours used to print, cyan, magenta and yellow. I find the use of these colours is very bright and make the photos look very modern and digital, which contrasts David Hockney's work.

Overall this one is my favourite piece, I find the use of colours gives it a digital feel, and the composition of the photos gives across the idea of a skeleton but it's still distorted by the photos as they're taken from different angles.