Mulholland Drive
Signed Print

Two large mounds rise up against a background of a printed map of LA, its many gridded lines offering a stark contrast to the looser marks of vegetation and the curve of hills on the horizon. Two cars, seemingly drawn with a crayon, drive past underneath sloping power lines. Produced as part of the Home Made Prints series, Mulholland Drive shows Hockney playing with his newfound autonomy, given to him by the office photocopier he purchased in 1986 in order to reclaim some agency in the process of printmaking. In contrast to lithography and etching, with the photocopier there was no need for a plate or a messy combination of inks. Here he could simply layer drawings, as well as found objects, such as the map, to create a scene in very little time. He could also swap out ink cartridges to create a layer of colour, and in this work we see him returning to the familiar palette of black, grey and red which characterise one of his earliest series of etchings, The Rake’s Progress. While embedded in a deeply mechanical process, the artist’s hand is still very much present, from the hand drawn cars in the foreground to the fine lines that cover the cone shaped mound on the right.