Hodgkin

Dinner at west hill

Howard Hodgkin my first impression of Hodgkin's work is that its in an abstract style of painting in which nonrepresentational lines, colors, shapes, and forms replace accurate visual depiction of objects, landscape, and figures. The subjects often stylised, blurred, repeated or broken down into basic forms so that it becomes unrecognisable. for example in his piece Dinner at West Hill he repeats a series of blue dotes that represents the coloure of the room, this reminds me of a mono print. his use of bold shapes creates a dynamic composition. the horizontal white line gives the work structure helping it emphasises the flatness of the piece. it also represents the end of the table.  

materials and processes: Hodgkin used oil on canvas to create his paintings. there are repeated dots in the back ground this creates a flowing pattern in his work. the colourful shapes create a rhythm and a collection of the memories of the dinner party, recreating the mood in the room. Hodgkin tried to make his pictures into object so from 1970 instead of painting on canvas he unicaly painted on mundane objects like  wooden boredes or door frames. Hodgkin’s paintings are generally small in scale, and are created using the traditional European easel painting. He painted extremely slowly, sometimes taking up to four years or more on one work.

Howard Hodgkin was a English painter, printmaker and collector. he won the turner prize in 1985. the tittle of this piece is Dinner at west Hill it was made in 1964-6. the painting is a commemorates a dinner party given in March 1964 by the painter Bernard Cohen and his wife Jeanie. Some of the marks in this picture drive from the forms in Cohen's paintings. the often manic humour helped place Hodgkin tin the climate of Pop art, although he was not directly associated with the movement. His work is more often associated with abstract. 

I think the meaning behind his work is to recreate one memory and make it into an object. He took figures and then embedded them into the matrix of his work. This painting conveys his feelings and emotions that he felt during that moment that he chose to capture. the artist said "i had to contend with a nervous and glittering evening in a green and white room full of small B. Cohens on the wall". this painting makes the viewer think about colour and its meaning as they try to compare it to one of their memories. This piece reminds me of my childhood memories in the playground as the colours are bright and vibrant and the shapes are structured like climbing frame the dots represent the grass while the flowing shapes show the movement of the children. 

what i particularly like about this piece is the contrast between the repeated pattern of dots in the background which creates a staccato effect, and the flowing shapes in the foreground  together creating a musical symphony. Where the spots is the beat and the colourful, swooping brush strokes  is the rhythm. Howard Hodgkin is a very poetic painter who portrays his emotions and feelings in a synaesthetic manner coresponding to scents, colours, sounds  tastes and tactile sensations. although Hodgkin paintings are visually interesting they can be hard to interpratate. His pieces are all responses to his own memories so it is difficult for the viewer  to truly understand what they are about and know what the artist was feeling at the time. The only indication that we have as the audience to what the painting is about is the title of the piece, just like a song. Which again remind us that his paintings where an emotional response to a particular time and place rather then an intellectual response that show what was really there. When i look at this painting i imagine i can hear ordered cahos because of the spotted background. I would like to use this technique in my own work to capture one of my favourite memories over the summer holidays.

My lasts thoughts on his work is that i love the way Hodgkin has managed to bring the unconscious world into conscious world transforming an emotion into an object  His emotional response to his memories has inspired me to try and capture my own memory and make them into a materialistic object rather then leaving them as a speck in my imagination. Although his responses to his memories have no meaning to the viewer they help us think of our own memories.

Italy

These two paintings are both by Howard Hodgkin they have similarities and differences, the first painting 'dinner at west hill' uses bright colours which inprint in your mind this is also noticeable in the second painting  where vibrant colours are used. Both paintings used bold sweeping brush stroks. In the pice 'Italy'  the brush strokes are more edged and sharp creating a bolder image. this could show that Hodgkin’s memory of italy was sharper then that of the dinner party.