If you are reading these in any order, the shift from "Ed's mother has passed" to "David Hockney has passed" is a bit jarring. I don't want to overly share too much info on Ed's mom, because it is private and a family thing.
On the other hand, David Hockney is an artist I don't mind praising, because no one cares.
David Hockney has held my imagination for many years. He is a British Pop Art painter who spent the 70s - 90s primarily in Los Angeles. His work is deceptively child-like. He works with big colors and ideas, with the subtext of place never far from his work.
His painting of Mulholland Drive (at the top) is the perfect example for me. If you don't know, Mulholland Drive runs along the ridge of the Hollywood/Santa Monica Hills between the LA Basin and the San Fernando Valley. Both sides of the hill are various levels of urban city - typified by the street layouts on the top of the page. Below the ribbon of the roadway are the faux natural habitats along the street. But if you look a little, the colorful "nature" is that of Beverly Hills pools and Bel Air Canyon tennis courts, manicured lawns and gardens. The colors are vibrant and not very natural. It encapsulates the beauty of the city, all the while acknowledging the beauty of this "nature' is almost completely artificial. And yet, that doesn't detract from it.
He brings an outsider's viewpoint of Los Angeles (he was British) and succeeds because almost everyone is an outsider to Los Angeles.
Anyway, here are some of his pictures, the highlights of various decades as called out by his website (link).
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