By Megan Dickerson
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
Portrait artists are like hunters, following the scent of a
certain pose or an indescribable smirk. They stalk their subjects,
in hopes of confining to the page an elusive twinkle or a
characteristic shrug.
In this light, consider David Hockney’s new work at the
UCLA Hammer Museum a virtual hunting lodge. A total of 42 portraits
mount the cool beige walls of “LIKENESS: Recent Portrait
Drawings by David Hockney,” testifying to hundreds of hours
in the artistic brush. The faces are dramatic or contemplative;
defiant or naive. Hockney captures the essence of his menagerie of
subjects with a deliberateness that only a seasoned veteran could
produce.
The one-room Hammer exhibit is thus a mystifying, almost
religious experience. Despite a few portraits of celebrities such
as photographer Herb Ritts, the exhibit encompasses people you
probably don’t know, and never will. That’s part of its
charm. Just a little while spent in the one-room exhibit produces a
communal, almost voyeuristic effect; we are given 42 faces to
examine as we will, scrutinizing their every wrinkle or scowl. A
bare bones presentation, utilizing simple frames and an even
simpler color scheme, strips humanity down to just the incredibly
unique facial expression ““ which, apparently, is the
artist’s ultimate goal.
Of course, every hunter must have their tools, and Hockney has
found a forceful one in the camera lucida, the device reportedly
used by Old World masters such as Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres.
Using lens and mirrors, the camera lucida pinpoints areas of the
subject’s face, allowing a more precise sense of proportion.
Like projecting the actual face directly on a screen, the tricky
tool can capture an elusive moment in time when handled
correctly.
Hockney gained interest in the camera lucida after seeing the
early 1999 Ingres exhibit at the National Gallery of London. After
some experimentation with the camera lucida in his L.A. studio,
Hockney ultimately created more than 200 portraits, 42 of which are
shown here.
Hockney’s work with the traditional camera lucida not only
gives his new portraits an extreme sense of detail but also an
immediate sense of place. Naturally, Hockney holds much in common
with Ingres, mostly due to the time both spent in the field of
draftsmanship, a profession devoted to fine detail. The labeling at
the stoop of the exhibit places Hockney as a natural successor to
Ingres’ line, inheriting both the tools and the dedication
necessary for elegant portraiture.
Inside the Hammer’s gallery, the impact of the 42
portraits is church-like. A vaulted ceiling recalls a religious
sanctuary, while also giving the exhibit a strong sense of
continuation. As one glides from face to face, the exhibit gives
the feeling that there is no beginning, and no end.
The portraits quickly exude a trance-like quality, adopting a
rhythm of facial expression and pose. Portraits have been numbered,
leaving the walls free of label clutter. Like a Gregorian labyrinth
walk, everything is connected. Displayed against a beige eggshell
wall the same hue as the portrait paper, the faces soon feel as if
they’re all part of the same work.
Some portraits draw the viewer in for more than a moment. A
dignified pregnant woman, for instance, takes on the camera with a
beauty that, momentarily, seems incomparable. Four portraits of the
printer Maurice Payne catch him at different stages, seemingly; all
drawn within months of each other, each portrait seems to age him
““ a hair is awry here, a shirt rumpled there. The four
portraits become an experiment in themselves, looking at different
ways of presenting the same person.
Elsewhere in this sanctified gallery, colors jump out at the
viewer. After nailing down the camera lucida technique, Hockney
began experimenting with gouache, touching his subjects with a
splash of color. The color scheme of the Hammer exhibit, thus,
becomes red, white, blue and beige-with a little green thrown on a
necktie for contrast, a little orange on an impudent-looking
child’s hat.
After a while, the viewer might recognize a glimmer in the eye
of a bearded man here, or pick out the turn of a lip there. The
viewer might just recognize himself in the subjects, staring back
from the buff paper. If this is true, then we are all connected to
the portraits, which were executed within the last two years.
Hockney’s people are suspended in time and space. A
dignified, bearded man wearing a white linen suit could easily be
pasted anywhere in recent chronology, as could the many children in
the gathering. There are old women, and women with the strong scent
of youth; there are strung-out men, and others who look as if
they’ve just come from an academic conference.
The children are, perhaps, the strongest connective bonds in the
exhibit. The expressions captured by Hockney and his camera lucida
inspire speculation as to what they will become, after time has
lined their eyes and perhaps, dampened their innocent gaze.
Thus, the exhibit’s dialogue time and again comes back to
the 42 faces, penciled and watermarked by experience. The 84 eyes
impart world-weary stares, reminding us that life in a
technological world can be excruciating. At the same time, viewers
will recognize the same gazes from thousands of 18th and 19th
century portraits, made when the camera lucida was the height of
technology and people were just as world-weary. Captured here by a
hunter as adept as Hockney, they are enshrined as both testaments
to the intertwining nature of humanity and a long-held artistic
tradition.
EXHIBIT: “LIKENESS: Recent Portrait Drawings by David
Hockney” runs at the UCLA Hammer Museum through June 4.