David Hockney - My Mother Evaluation

David Hockney - ‘My Mother’

Content

This is an image of David Hockney’s mother that he has rearranged to show different sides of her face. This was taken in Yorkshire, England.  He created photomontage images between the years of 1970s and 1986. This image seems to represent the different sides of a person’s image. He has called this photomontage ‘My Mother’ as it is a photo of this mum. The title changes the way that I see this image because at first I didn’t know who this person was but now I understand that it is his Mother, which shows that this picture hold sentimental value to him.

Each separate photograph within the image is a realistic depiction but the composition of the image is not realistic. The theme of this photograph is cubism which makes it more visually appealing.

The message that I get from this image is that his mother is old and frail which is represented in the separate photographs of her eyes. But the centre of this image, her smile, shows that although she is old, she is happy.   

Form

The photograph is in colour which helps to convey emotion as we see the pink in her cheeks which shows life. The lines that are represented are the outline of each photograph which help to block each picture and helps to form the stylistic features of cubism. The contrast is neither high nor low as there is a difference between light and dark but not to an extreme level.  The shapes used are a range of rectangles and squares which adds variety as well as focuses on some facial features.

Process

The photograph was taken outside, during the day time. Natural day light was used to light up the image. This is clear as there is not much harsh lighting and the skies appear to be grey.

The only way in which that the photograph has been manipulated is through the use of composition.   This was done to make the image more interesting

Mood

This photograph immediately made me feel inspired due to its interesting composition.  This made me feel like this because I have seen this picture before and I have wanted to do something similar to this.