Fjord, Kamoyvaer

Executed in 2002, Fjord, Kamoyvaer is an enchanting example of David Hockney's recent landscape paintings. Incorporating two of Hockney's lifelong preoccupations, space and light, this landscape piece presents a tranquil side view of the fjords, which he observed on his travels to Norway in 2002. Constantly drawn to landscape, Hockney frequently traveled around the world in search of new ways of depicting space and capturing fleeting light and weather conditions. "To have longer periods of twilight (when color is not bleached but extremely rich) one has to go north. I made a trip to Norway in May 2002, was very taken with the dramatic landscape and returned to go much further north, when in June the sun never sets at all. You can see the landscape at all hours, 24 hours a day. There is no night. I found myself deeply attracted to it" (D. Hockney in G. Evans, Hockney's Pictures: The Definitive Retrospective, U.K., 2004, p. 325) With the muted and changing atmosphere the north presented a different challenge and required alternative techniques.

Hockney's subjects form a simple catalogue of the visual world, seen every day by everyone. Choosing not to specialize, Hockney explored a multitude of genres: portraits, still lifes, pastiches of cubist motifs, photo composites and landscape pictures. Style, illusionism, flatness all appear within the canvas of Fjord, Kamoyvaer. Composed out of multiple sheets of paper, capturing different perspectives, Hockney unifies this work with simplified strokes. As in a painting of a postcard or a tourist's snapshot, the composition in this piece and the flat scenery emphasize the lush quality permitted by watercolor, highlighting Hockney's ability to translate beautifully his own personal experience of nature.