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He continues to create, is David Hockney. At 88 years old, with over six decades of professional experience which has propelled him to the pinnacle in the modern art world, the artist remains active with his brush, still experimenting, still innovating, and still having shows.

A Glimpse into the Exhibition

This exhibition – debuting in a prestigious central London venue for Annely Juda, which has represented him for decades – is packed with paintings so new you can almost smell the wet paint. The opening room features intensely vibrant still life compositions: furniture, produce, and floral arrangements. While the themes are traditional and conventional, Hockney’s approach is never boring, right?

His chairs reminiscent of Van Gogh glow in bright yellow and vivid purple; his floors are clashing compositions of red, yellow and orange shapes; his fruit depictions are simple, elemental, and youthful. Throughout, he toys with what he calls “reverse perspective”, aiming to mirror true human vision, rather than the fixed perspective we get in photographs and other paintings. Thus, everything appears unstable and distorted. The legs of his chairs spread out, his tablecloths warp. It may not be more accurate than classical perspective compared to conventional techniques, yet the dizzying, uneasy sensation it produces is fun. Garden images are incorporated into certain pieces – brief peeks into a muted English setting that just make the rest of each work feel brighter and sunnier.

Nothing he does is ever dull … Delphiniums on My Garden Table, a recent creation.

Changes in Artistic Technique

What is unmistakable is how much shakier these brush marks are than they used to be. Classic Hockney is so assured, displaying masterful control, yet these latest creations are surprisingly erratic. The strokes are filled with shakes and vibrations, the lines are all over the shop, patches of white base layer are visible throughout. They border on chaotic, but still immediately, uniquely and recognisably him. It makes for quite an emotional, affecting experience – we’re watching one of the great artists of modern times age in front of our eyes. Compare all this with the very early works featured in a separate exhibition from several months ago and it evokes the sense of a career’s beginning and end, and I’m not sure I’m ready to handle that level of morbidity, actually.

Figurative Works: Critical Views

The portraits are where this show fails the hardest though. Hockney’s approach to skin tone has shifted toward a pointillist style over the years resulting in figures that look as if they’re covered in sores. All the figures here are splotchy, red-faced and pockmarked, splodged with pink and red with the exception of one individual who looks somewhat decayed. The figures are closer to fresh corpses than living beings with heartbeats and vitality. A three-panel mirror portrait is a good idea, yet the subject appears awkwardly waiting for his wife in a mundane setting. Only the self-portrait here showing Hockney painting in a wheelchair is successful, and that’s because it’s so vulnerable, but also so funnily self-aware.

Quiet and austere … a piece from early 2020.

Experiments with Technology

Upstairs, Hockney continues his iPad experiments featuring lunar artworks; all dark and moody, big glowing orbs hovering above blackened landscapes. They feel quiet, austere, maybe a little sad. Criticisms of his digital art are unfounded – people complain about the lack of texture and brush marks and human touch, etc., yet in my view, they are impressive – an artist bending new technology to his will, showing that whatever the medium, he preserves his distinctive artistic identity.

Debating Artistic Output

But look, do we really need yet another Hockney exhibition? There have been more than 10 shows of his work in London recently, not to mention the giant retrospective at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris earlier this year, and this new exhibition isn’t even the last of it. The Serpentine is doing a big one in 2026, as well. I love Hockney, yet I believe there may be a limit.

Nevertheless, I guess we should celebrate him while we can. Here, with all these new works with their wobbles and humour and light and color, he demonstrates his ongoing dedication, and his talent endures, all these years later.