Matelot Kevin Druez 2
Matelot Kevin Druez 2
Signed Print
David Hockney
152 x 104cm, Edition of 30, Digital Print, 2009
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Meaning & Analysis
Matelot Kevin Druez 2 is a 2009 digital print by David Hockney from his iPad drawings, showing a young sailor in a white cap lettered “Marine Nationale”. He sits astride a pale wooden chair, one arm over the back and a cigarette in his hand, against a bright green wall. The work is signed, dated and numbered from an edition of 30.
In 2009 Hockney was working extensively with the iPad. He made a number of portraits of friends and sitters, working directly on the screen. The Matelot drawings show a French naval sailor in uniform, drawn in several poses, bringing one of the oldest subjects in European painting to a new medium.
The sitter looks out at the viewer with a level, unsmiling gaze. He wears a white cap with a red pompom, a navy jersey with a broad white collar, and trousers in the same blue, which fills much of the lower half of the picture. His body is turned across a chair. A thin plume of smoke from his cigarette is drawn in a pale, wavering line. A floor of orange and red hatching sits against the green of the wall, a strong complementary contrast to the navy of his uniform.
The marks of the finger and stylus are visible throughout, in the hatched skin tones and in the overlapping layers of blue. Hockney has described the iPad as allowing him to work quickly with a wide range of colour. This portrait shows that fluency.
