David Hockney 4th February 2021, Flowers in White Vase with Chair For Sale

David Hockney’s 4^th February 2021, Flowers in White Vase with Chair features the same white ceramic vase as the 30^th January 2021, The First One artwork. It is part of his series, 20 Flowers and Some Bigger Pictures which features the same still life of flowers in a vase caught by the low sunlight in the early part of the year.

Hockney’s idea for the series came about during the second half of the pandemic lockdown when isolated in his Normandy home, he began to observe the flowers in the vase in his kitchen each day: he pinned an image of a drawing he had done of the flowers against a wall and reinterpreted it each day just with minor changes, including colour, perspective, line and form. In doing so Hockney has created a series that captures the passages of time through the simple iteration of still life flowers in a vase: the minor shifts reflect our own lens through which we view daily occurrences in our lives not necessarily as others may see them, recalling the words of poet and philosopher, Anais Nin, ‘we don’t see the world as it is, we see it as we are.’

The ceramic white vase has the same slanted top as in the first image; long verdant green stalks rise up from the vase with a sparse few pink and violet buds finishing off the bunch of flowers. The sparing depiction of flowers in the vase in contrast to most of the other images in the series reflects on rebirth and nature’s own ecosystem.

Similarly to the other images, in 4^th February 2021, Flowers in White Vase with Chair, 2021, Hockney depicts the flowers in a vase on a blue gingham tablecloth. A long shadow is depicted as refracting off the white vase onto the tablecloth obviously from ‘a low sun’ beaming through a window that is not visible in the image. Unlike the other images in the series, we see more of the rooms interior: this is the only artwork in the series to show the top of a deep red wicker chair at the table. The viewer is left to ponder on the significance of the empty chair (a detail which features in Hockney’s earlier series, A Moving Focus) perhaps signifying the loss and emptiness of life as the world came to a standstill.

Similarly to the other artworks in 20 Flowers and Some Bigger Pictures, the still life flowers in a vase are set against the formality of a solid burgundy background. Hockney utilises the ‘brushstroke’ techniques and multi colour palette of the Ipad technology to create the flower portrait with intensity. Using different red tones and smudging to form the chair silhouette and shadows reflecting from the vase, Hockney creates a strong interplay of light and dark as if we are absorbed in the sunlight ourselves.

Like many of his Ipad artworks, Hockney illustrates his mastery of hand and technique creating a three-dimensional image from a two-dimensional flat Ipad screen. The vase of flowers is imbued with as much emotion as his human figures: the flowers feel alive to the viewer as if we can smell, touch and feel their goodness, as if we have picked and arranged them ourselves.