Now at Pace until May 12th, 17 new works radiate energy and optimism in their fauvist palette and leaping depictions of pictorial space. In fact, it seems Hockney’s curiosity and creative momentum have only magnified with age. His decisive brush work captures a dizzying playfulness that answers the dynamism introduced by his hexagonal canvases.

 

One diptych reads, “Perspective is tunnel vision/Outside it opens up.” In the next room, Annunciation 2, After Fra Angelico reinterprets Fra Angelico’s Annunciation as a jewel colored scene with a warped perspective—a cheeky interpretation that teases Renaissance art’s rigidity and high-nosed attitude towards all things fun, flamboyant and gay.

 

Just take a peep at In the Studio, two large scale photomurals that live on their own walls. Here, we see the artist at play, diving into the sandlot of digital manipulation and photography with naught but the ingrained intuitions of collage, painting, and perspective-shifting to render a space that feels uniquely his.

 

Hockney is a man who is long from finished and gunning for more, the kind of guy who, even as he explores unfamiliar territory in painting (and photography)[and even printing] finds the scope of his ideas outpacing the technology used to realize it.