David Hockney: an inspiration for garden designers

At the recent David Hockney exhibition at Factory International (Aviva Studios), I was struck by how inspirational his landscape paintings were and how they related to garden design. 

While the paintings of California pool landscapes are the most famous and iconic images, it was his techniques in painting nature that really inspired me during the immersive exhibition in Manchester city centre. 

His impressionist-style painting manages to capture the movement of trees, plants and flowers beautifully. In fact, while watching the paintings, it brought to mind the garden design work of Piet Oudolf, who many people say he ‘paints with plants’.

Some years ago, there was a Hockney and Van Gogh exhibition, as Van Gogh’s impressionist landscape paintings of the South of France were hugely inspirational to Hockney when painting landscapes in both Bridlington, Yorkshire and France. In 2020 during the Covid pandemic, David Hockney used an iPad to paint 116 new works from his home in Normandy, as he was massively inspired by the country landscape in France. 

The exhibition at Factory brought the images to life, broadcasting them onto huge floor-to-ceiling screens, with a narration from Hockney himself, with his soothing Yorkshire tones. 

The techniques are straight from the Impressionist playbook, but Hockney’s paintings and images are vibrant, jumping off the screen, almost straight into your brain. His paintings of landscapes, nature and trees bring together colour, movement and perspective to give the viewer a real sense of awe, much like a beautiful planting design can inspire wonder in the viewer. 

I also loved his ability to capture the different light, share and moods of the changing seasons, which also reflects the thought process you go through as a garden designer. 

I also loved his use of different mediums, from photography montage, traditional painting and his later iPad drawings – all of which are truly inspirational to any artist. Landscape, gardens and planting bring together the same levels of creativity as art, both interwoven with using colour, texture and movement to invoke a real sense of beauty and awe in the viewer. 

I found this exhibition truly inspirational and even though my visit was at the end of a really busy year, I was inspired to get back to ‘painting with plants’.