David Hockney champions the iPad
David Hockney has become the latest champion of the iPad, arguing that the new Apple touch screen computer will have a transformative effect on art.
The Yorkshire artist has taken to creating artworks on the device due to results being immediate, and there being no cost associated with shipping or hanging the works – instead he sends them out via email.
The 72-year-old believes that the iPad will have profound effects, artistically and politically, as it “empowers more and more people to distribute their own images, weakening the older suppliers of images and perhaps governments as well.”
“The iPad is far more subtle, in fact it really is like a drawing pad. It will change the way we look at everything from reading newspapers to the drawing pad,” he said.
“It can be anything you want it to be. This is the nearest we have got to seeing what I would call a universal machine.”
Hockney has been creating his iPad artworks using a £2.99 app called Brushes, which allows the user's finger becomes virtual brushes, and menus allow the painter to change colours and brush styles and zoom in and out of their picture. Finished pictures are then emailed.
The iPad work is the latest iteration of Hockney’s experimental streak, which has previously seen him turn to cameras, faxes, printers, mirrors, oil, watercolour and pencil to create new works.