3/7

I always enjoyed Hockney's thoughts on art but visiting the 25 retrospective last year truly made me feel his work and lit a fire in me about how focused you have to be; and to keep just painting, no matter what.  Standing in all the rooms with his life's work all around me was to feel the intense energy he brought to painting. The paintings from Normandy sing like anything van Gogh did. He also made me realise that he painted wartercolours the same way he used acrylic. He didn't adapt to the medium he adapted the medium to his needs. Giant vista, portraits, Polaroid photography, delicate watercolours, ipad paintings, theories on lens's that led to renaissance brilliance, fauvist colour in garden scenes, backdrop to opera. He did it all.   'painting is the hand , the eye and the heart' he learnt after visiting a MoMa Exhibition on Middle Age Chinese paintings and I learnt this from him.  Others tested the boundaries of form and materials, he just loved to paint and test the traditions of painting and in doing so stood out uniquely.