David Hockney and My Idea of Artistic Freedom

On the California light, pop art with depth, the iPad, and the right to keep seeing.

David Hockney didn’t teach me to paint like him. He taught me something more important: that an artist can be free enough to follow their own gaze, change tools, and still hold onto the image.

With David Hockney’s recent passing, I’ve felt a need to write about what he has meant to me – both as an artist and as a role model for a way of being an artist. Hockney passed away on June 11, 2026, at the age of 88.

His way of embracing a creative identity has been a quiet support for many years. An artist who found his own path and never seemed shy about exploring new techniques, new media, or new ways of approaching an image. For me, he became the very symbol of what I’ve long thought of as artistic freedom: finding one’s own language in an era where trends and dogmas often set the premises for what is considered relevant art.

Elevate Yourself (2023). Digital iPad drawing / DGA print © Edvarda Braanaas

When abstraction, conceptualism, and various theory-driven movements characterized much of the art world, Hockney maintained an unwavering faith in the image. He continued to paint, draw, photograph, and experiment without losing touch with the fundamental question: How do we see the world? How can an image convey experience, presence, and life?

Perhaps that’s why he meant so much to me. He reminded us that it’s still okay to enjoy creating images.

Perhaps it’s also no coincidence that California became so important to him – and, indirectly, to me. The light, the colors, the pool culture, the lifestyle, and the open horizon. All of this, in Hockney's work, became more than mere motifs; it became a way of understanding the world. California, through his art, appeared as a place where sensory experience and joy of life could thrive without irony.

Pierre Koenig, Oberman Residence, Rancho Palos Verdes (1962?), designed by Koenig (all images via USC Architectural Teaching Slide Collection)

I never met Hockney personally, but I was never far from him either.

During the years I lived in Los Angeles, I saw several major exhibitions of his work, and I also had the opportunity to meet his close friend, Derek Boshier. Through conversations about their lives and work, I felt a closeness to the artist that went beyond museum walls.

What first captivated me about Hockney were his early figurative works. Later came the fascination with his exploration of photography, the collage works, the composite perspectives, and not least, his tireless curiosity about new technology.

iPad, technology, and the authenticity of the image

One of the things I admire most about Hockney is the way he embraced new technology.

When the iPad was launched in 2010, he adopted it almost immediately. He bought one of the first iPads upon its release in April 2010 and worked in the Brushes drawing app. Initially, he drew directly on the screen with his finger. The Apple Pencil didn't arrive until five years later, in 2015.

It's easy to underestimate what this meant. Drawing directly on a screen, for me, is not so far from drawing on paper or painting on canvas. There is still an immediate connection between hand, head, and heart. The line emerges in the moment, and the image develops through sight, movement, and experience.

For someone coming from drawing and painting, this is essential. Digital work doesn't have to mean programming. iPad drawing can be a direct continuation of the physical act: making a line with a pen and applying color with a brush.

During the years I lived in Los Angeles, I saw several exhibitions of Hockney’s work at the L.A. Louver Gallery. One of them was David Hockney: iPhone and iPad Drawings, 2009–12, where he showed an extensive series of digital drawings created directly on iPhone and iPad. Around the same period, I also saw Something New in Painting (and Photography) [and even Printing]… Continued (2019), which featured newer works in painting, photography, and further experiments with image production. These encounters with the works in a physical space made the technology tangible for me – not as a break with painting, but as an extension of it.

L.A. Louver, 45 N. Venice Boulevard, Venice, CA 90291

I also started using the iPad around this time and created my first digital drawings. The tool was initially less developed than it is today, but even then it was crucial: one could work directly, intuitively, and without the distance that often arises between artist and technology. Eventually, a much larger selection of brushes, layers, and possibilities emerged, but the principle remained the same.

The question of authenticity has always plagued the art world – and, naturally, the market. What constitutes an original work when the image can be multiplied? What happens to credibility when an image is not tied to a single canvas or a single sheet?

For me, authenticity lies not primarily in the material, the original, or the number of copies, but in the image itself: in its content, form, rhythm, color, composition, and the human presence in the work. A good image is a good image, regardless of medium.

Of course, craftsmanship and mastery matter, and the tool matters. But for an image-maker, the most important thing is that the image has its own necessity – that it carries something that cannot be reduced to technique, format, or market.

Beach Walk (2022). Digital iPad drawing / DGA print © Edvarda Braanaas

Hockney understood this. He embraced the iPad not as an escape from painting, but because it opened up yet another way to create images. And a new type of "sketchbook" that the artist could take anywhere. He could quickly capture the light, work outdoors, build transparent layers, and return to the same motif again and again. For him, technology was not a replacement for art, but an expansion of its possibilities.

It's an attitude I recognize: not to reject the new, but to explore what it can offer. To be present in one's own time and embrace technological shifts as a possible space for creative freedom.

With Hockney, this never represented a break with tradition. On the contrary, the iPad became yet another tool in the long history of hand, eye, color, and image.

Pop art with depth

And perhaps this is where I also find the key to his significance for pop art.

For me, Hockney is the artist who gave pop art deeper legitimacy. Not because he was the first pop artist, but because he showed how the genre could encompass far more than the superficialities of its time. With Hockney, it's not just about depicting modern life; it's about being present in one's own time while simultaneously engaging in dialogue with art history.

He drew inspiration from the Renaissance, from classical painting, from perspective theory and landscape traditions, without ever feeling nostalgic. He understood that art does not start anew with each generation. On the contrary. It grows through a continuous conversation between past and present.

Pool side mood 2.0 (2025). Digital iPad drawing / DGA print © Edvarda Braanaas

Perhaps this is precisely where I believe true pop art emerges: in the encounter between contemporary images and the deeper layers of human experience. Much of the popular culture art that surrounds us today is content to merely splash on the surface. It reproduces logos, celebrities, brands, or cultural references that are already circulating in the media.

But a one-dimensional reproduction of contemporary symbols is not enough to create a spiritual community.

There must be another dimension – something poetic, existential, or narrative – that makes the images transcend their own moment. This is what Hockney achieved.

He painted his present, but at the same time allowed it to be part of a larger narrative about how humans see, remember, love, long, and live. He united the immediate with the timeless. Therefore, I see him not only as a central pop artist, but as the artist who gave pop art its perhaps most convincing artistic substance.

He showed that popular culture motifs could carry the same poetry, complexity, and human weight as classical art. Only then do images become more than images. Only then does the genre gain its true legitimacy.

When I look back at Hockney's enormous output – from the early figurative works through the iconic pool paintings to the monumental landscapes and digital drawings – I see an artist who never allowed himself to be limited by style, medium, or expectations.

He took the freedom to explore the entire spectrum: figuration and abstraction, drawing and technology, intimate portraits and monumental landscapes.

For me, this has been an important reminder throughout an entire artistic life. That one doesn't have to choose one camp. That art doesn't become poorer by being diverse. On the contrary.

One of the things I have always admired about Hockney is precisely this unashamed playfulness. The ability to move between expressions without losing himself. Classical painting, photography, digital media, popular culture, and new techniques could all be part of the conversation if they served the image.

That freedom is rare.

And perhaps that's why I feel such gratitude when I think of him now.

For if art, at its core, is about keeping one's gaze alive, about preserving curiosity and the ability to admire, then there are few artists who have represented this more strongly than Hockney.

I never met him.

But through his images, through the California light, through his playfulness, courage, and unstoppable will to continue exploring, he has been a companion nonetheless.

Perhaps it's not entirely unreasonable to say that I have felt like a kind of kindred spirit.

Thank you for the reminder that art never grows old as long as curiosity lives.

And thank you for all the images. They will continue to look back at us long after we are gone.