Damian Elwes

REMEMBERING DAVID HOCKNEY

“I am so lucky that David Hockney was my friend and mentor when he lived in Los Angeles. He always called me “Dear” and I will miss him dearly. Whenever I phoned, he immediately invited me over. His colorful Mulholland house was so like his paintings. We would sit in comfy chairs, hunting through Zervos catalogs for our favorite Picasso artworks with his dogs, Stanley and Boodgie wrapped around our legs.

David taught me so much about all the artists that he loved. He was convinced that he was related to Vincent Van Gock(ney)! I couldn’t help glancing up at the big window in front of us. David had painted cut out fish and dangled them from branches with strings. They moved in the breeze, and so it seemed like a giant fish tank.

Sometimes David was in his studio in his dressing gown. So we’d hang out there for hours, and he would show me all the paintings he was doing. It was exciting to hear him explain what the paintings were about. Often he would open up his drawing drawers and take out luscious sketches from times gone by. Those images took us through the years of his life from when he had been a student in England, to heady times in New York and L.A., to intimate hotel scenes in Morocco and Paris or breathtaking renditions of the Great Mosque of Cordoba or desolate Norwegian landscapes. He captured everything with his playful but brilliant hand.

When work was finished, a delicious dinner awaited in the dining room or we would pile into his classic, silver BMW and drive downtown to a Chinese restaurant with Wagner’s operas blaring. Once he took me to ‘Tristan and Isolde’ where he had designed dreamlike sets that were as alive as his paintings. He always gave me so much guidance. He warned me not to get trapped by Picasso while I was busy creating a 60 foot wide interior of Picasso’s Villa in Cannes!

David’s advice was always golden, and he said everything with a chuckle and in a loving way. Once he said to me, “Just bore them!” I was very surprised but he worried that my paintings might be too full of ideas. He walked me into a gallery one day and said to the art dealer, “You need to exhibit this young man. His paintings are wonderful.” The art dealer replied, “His paintings are too beautiful! People don’t want beauty any more.”

I was able to give David some advice too. I simply told him that trees were more spiritual than abstraction. That led to him turning his attention to nature. Thank you darling David. May you brighten heaven with your colors and humor! We are sad but you left us so much to enjoy.

The day before this photo was taken I visited my friend, David Hockney, at his studio. He was making large Abstract paintings with protruding sculptures and he asked me, “What could be more Spiritual than Abstraction?”

“Trees!” I replied.

“What?”

“If there is a God, then nature is his canvas.”

The next day David came to see my Rainforest exhibition. He loved the paintings but he also admired the way I was joining paintings together to create a 360 degree diorama. He soon began painting trees and at the end of his life he made a 360 degree artwork on his iPad which is currently on view at The Serpentine Gallery in London..

1997 EDGE OF THE FOREST

 “Edge of the Forest” was the first of 4 installations created in Colombia. 12 paintings join together in a square 360 degree diorama. The viewer finds themselves standing withinin an exotic garden with a home on one side and the rainforest on the opposite side. This painting represented Damian’s choice at that time: to stay in the life he had grown accustomed to or to venture into the unknown.

(CLICK ON IMAGE ABOVE TO SCROLL ALL 12 PAINTINGS)