Presenting multiple angels of view, Inside It Opens Up As Well explores Hockney’s ongoing investigation into the notion of perspective. The photomontage, which Hockney refers to a "photographic drawing", is a panoramic view of the artist’s Los Angeles studio. Introducing a complex depiction of space, the present lot attests to the artist’s efforts to transcend the constraints of conventional one-point perspective by re-inventing the portrayal of three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional surface. Infusing the photographic drawing with multiple points of view, Hockney favours reverse perspective over one-point perspective, playing with our habits of sight and encouraging the eye to freely roam across the composition.
“I don’t use one perspective. I use very many. That is where photography is going, multiple perspectives. This is what digital permits.”
—David Hockney
Advancing from his earlier polaroid collages from the 1980s, Inside It Opens Up As Well employs innovative methods of digital production, demonstrating Hockney’s extensive engagement with new technologies. By utilising a photogrammetric software to combine hundreds of single snapshots from various viewpoints, the artist created three-dimensional approximations for individual objects, which he then grouped in a notional studio space. By digitally altering the object’s colours, and manually adding highlights and shadows that contradict the principles of traditional lighting, Hockney combined his drawing and painting practices with photography, creating a photographic drawing which appears at once awkwardly hyper-realistic and subtly wrong.
Hockney’s examination of perspective is additionally reinforced by the subject matter of Inside It Opens Up As Well. The photographic drawing in fact depicts twelve of the artist’s famous hexagonal paintings from 2017. Constructed using reverse perspective, these canvases depict a vast range of subjects often based on Hockney’s earlier work, including the Grand Canyon, east Yorkshire, the terrace of his home in Hollywood Hills, and imaginary surreal landscapes. The hexagonal structure of the paintings further emphasises Hockney’s attempt to transcend the restrictions of traditional perspective. As the artist explained: “The indentations paradoxically widen the sense of space and invite all sort of fresh lines of sight. Far from cutting corners, I was adding them.” Moreover, Hockney places himself within Inside It Opens Up As Well; with arms outstretched, he gazes into a painting that reads “outside it opens up – perspective is tunnel vision”. This statement seems to summarise the artist’s life-long aversion to single-point, linear perspective.