Portrait of an Artist

        David Hockney paints posters, or such likenesses. Posters as we know are those compromised situations when one can't afford a frame. One is renting a room but somehow even there we want to pronounce our fine taste in things visual and aural. A posters collection and a foot wide record collection became indispensable tools of self expression for those maturing into adulthood in the nineteen seventies.

        The album titles and the artists were signs that told visitors that one was a serious chap who knew the cool groups. A David Hockney painting had a similar effect. His paintings are too easily likeable. They are ordinary scenes shown with matching colours.

They are snap shots of modern life. The fact that one showed leanings towards appreciating the beauty of the passing moment proved one's existential credentials. The existence of God had to be doubted. That was de rigeur in stamping one as a latter day rationalist.

        There is a related painting of a notorious LA art dealer called Nick Wilder with his head out of the pool. Apparently Hockney was a favourite. It could be inferred therefore that the guy in the pool is Nick Wilder, trying his best to ignore the pleas of the young man whom we presume is the artist, desperate to get into one of Wilder's galleries. No, most artists are not calm like David Hockney. They are ambitious vain people hungry for recognition, fame and the rewards, not unlike the rest of humanity, whom the artists deign to represent. The image thus can be parsed right down to the basic motivator of all artistic action: Desire.

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