iPhone art

Images © David Hockney (these were originally available for free download )

David Hockney's latest exhibition in Salt's Mill in Saltaire is called 'Fresh Flowers'.  It shows paintings he has made using his iPhone and iPad.  A series of images - mostly paintings of flowers - are dramatically projected onto three large screens in a darkened gallery, so that the colours are vibrant and you can see the 'brushstrokes' ... made using his thumb and an iPhone app called 'Brushes'.

“After all, this is a medium of pure light, not ink or pigment, if anything more akin to a stained glass window than an illustration on paper.”

They do look very soft-focus, as in this photo, no doubt on account of being enlarged so much from the original iPhone size.  But the colours are wonderful, the paintings deceptively simple and - as with much modern art - you kind of feel that you might be able to create something similar, at the same time realising that really you couldn't!  (I did, however, create a very satisfying impressionistic photo made up of three of the images - only fear of litigation prevents me posting it here!!  The two above are by no means my favourites but they were available to download whereas the others are all copyrighted.)

There's an interesting article by Lawrence Wechsler from The New York Review of Books that explains this new development in Hockney's work.  One of the things I most like about David Hockney is his willingness to experiment and to embrace new technology, and I am always fascinated to hear him talk about his thought processes:

"It [ie: the iPhone] is always there in my pocket, there’s no thrashing about, scrambling for the right color. One can set to work immediately, there’s this wonderful impromptu quality, this freshness, to the activity; and when it’s over, best of all, there’s no mess, no clean-up. You just turn off the machine. Or, even better, you hit Send, and your little cohort of friends around the world gets to experience a similar immediacy. There’s something, finally, very intimate about the whole process."

(The artist David Hockney was born in Bradford, studied at Bradford College of Art and currently lives on the Yorkshire coast at Bridlington.  Salt's Mill in Saltaire holds a large collection of his work.)

Punchinello

The 1853 Gallery is only one of several galleries in Salts Mill, Saltaire.  There are gallery spaces on both the third and fourth floors.  Unlike the 1853 Gallery, which has a permanent exhibition, the other spaces have visiting exhibitions, by David Hockney and by other artists and craftspeople too.  In order, I suppose, to protect artworks that would be damaged by too much light, the galleries are shaded with blinds. The third floor has this lively red and white fabric, called 'Punchinello' (if I remember rightly) and designed by David Hockney.

[For those readers who have come to my blog more recently, the artist David Hockney was born in Bradford and studied at Bradford College of Art.  After many years of living in California, he now lives for much of the time on the Yorkshire coast. He was a personal friend of the late Jonathan Silver, the man who bought and redeveloped Salts Mill in the 1980s when it fell derelict after the textile business closed down.  The 1853 Gallery - the largest single collection of Hockney's work anywhere in the world - was the first part of the Mill to be reopened. There's more info if you click the David Hockney label below. ]

Diner dog

Driven back inside by the weather, we might need a snack and a drink!  The main restaurant in Salts Mill is on the third floor, through the Bookshop, and is called Salts Diner.  It has this rather appealing dachshund as its logo, found on everything from the menus to the paper napkins and the T-shirts of the waitresses.  Sketched by David Hockney (who else?!) it depicts Stanley...or maybe Boodgie... one of his two pet dogs.

Salts Diner is a large, bright space and does some imaginative food (see here for a review) - but at weekends it gets very busy so the service suffers a little, and it's very noisy.  That's the only trouble with the high ceilings and hard floors in the mill - everything clatters. Imagine what the noise must have been like with all the spinning machines working.  I was talking to a friend the other day who used to be a local doctor in Shipley.  He said he visited the mill once when it was still working and was warned to be careful what he said as he walked round, as all the workers were excellent lip-readers!

Cubist Post Box

Here's another of the many treasures to be found in the 1853 Gallery in Salts Mill, Saltaire: this wonderful pillar box red cube is actually a post box. It was made up to a design sketched by David Hockney in 1992, and was used for just one month as an actual post box in Salts Mill. That year, David Hockney designed a special commemorative stamp marking the European Single Market. The stamp was launched by the Royal Mail in Salts Mill and all letters posted in this box for one month were hand franked as a special issue to mark the event.

The inset shows the stamp itself, a special edition envelope with a picture of Salts Mill and Hockney's sketch for the post box. Probably the only time you could buy a Hockney print for 24p!

If you're in the market for a Hockney print now, there is a sale of some of his etchings (Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm) in the Victoria Hall from today until 10 April. Just think, you could not only be the proud owner of an original Hockney, but you'd have licence to use that immortal chat-up line: "Come up and see my etchings..."!

There's also chance to apply to be a volunteer steward for the BBC Antiques Roadshow, to be filmed in the Victoria Hall on 29 April, if anyone is interested!

'Salts Mill' in Salts Mill

The iconic painting by David Hockney, 'Salts Mill, Saltaire, Yorks', featured yesterday, can still be seen in the 1853 Gallery in Salts Mill, where it is hung on the end wall of the gallery. The stone nicely sets off its bright colours. I like to be able to get up close to a painting to see the brushstrokes and colours, but also stand well back and see the overall effect. You can do both in the 1853 Gallery and the painting does have quite an impact when viewed from some distance away.

I spent another pleasant hour or so mooching about in the Mill at the weekend - and yes, as always came home with a book (!) and some lovely cards. It really is a most delightful experience, listening to the gentle background music, smelling the fragrance of lilies, feasting on the paintings and wonderful books...plenty of eye-candy for the likes of me!

Hockney by Silver

Glimpsed through a doorway in Salt's Diner, the restaurant at the heart of Salts Mill, this series of photographs of the artist David Hockney remind us of his connection to this area and to Salts Mill. I think they were most probably taken by his friend Jonathan Silver. Jonathan was the 'saviour' of Salts Mill, rescuing it from dereliction in the 1980s and setting it up once again as the vibrant heart of this small community of Saltaire, albeit in a very different form from its origins as a textile mill. I have written before of his friendship with David Hockney, which led to Salts Mill becoming the home to a large collection of David Hockney's art.