BRITISH by birth, Californian by choice, artist David Hockney has embraced the gracious, sunny living of his adopted land. His hair is platinum blond, his T-shirt aquamarine and he has a healthy tan. In temperament and in sensibility, however, Hockneyis quite uniquely himself.
'If you come from the north of England, the climate [in California] is just about perfect,' he said at his home in the Hollywood Hills section of the City of Angels.
'Los Angeles is a unique city. You live with a great feeling of space, and I think I'm slightly claustrophobic, actually. I love being in wide open spaces. I love driving out to the desert. Just feeling that space, feeling the earth, it's so barren. I lovethat.' Hong Kong has an unprecedented opportunity to see the works of this marvellously inventive painter and set designer, one of the world's best known contemporary artists, at Art Asia 1993. The Andre Emmerich Gallery of New York will feature him in a one-man show, bringing about 40 pieces ranging from laser prints to photo collages to a large, floor-standing screen called Caribbean Tea Time. Hong Kong dealer Sandra Walters will also be showing several Hockney pieces.
Many of his works have a tropical feeling, with the vivid hues and golden light of his art expressing the dramatic landscape and gentle climate of southern California. He has been famous for his depictions of the Los Angelean icon - swimming pools, often fringed with tropical palms and young men.
Hockney first visited California in the 1960s, then settled in 1978, giving up his London flat for good. The choice was no accident.
As he says in his book, That's The Way I See It: 'I always felt kind of impotent in England; I never felt I was in control of things myself.' Hockney often drives through the winding mountain roads near his house, classical music blasting out. The landscape has been captured in a number of paintings, filtered through his technicolour lens, as in his famous painting Mulholland Drive: the Road to the Studio, in the collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and in the 'internal landscapes' of what he calls his 'very new paintings'.