Hotel Acatlán: First Day

One of six views of the courtyard of the Hotel Acatlánin Mexico which Hockney came across after running into car trouble while on holiday in 1984, Hotel Acatlán: First Day shows a wide lens view that brings inside and outside together. We are gazing out at a lush garden from under a large portico that wraps around the building; wooden beams spread out overhead like rays of sunlight supported by blue columns, lone chairs fade into the bright red of the floor, and large plant pots border the edge of the grass. At either end of the panoramic composition stand green doors providing an edge to this expanse of colour. The garden and courtyard appear as a kind of paradise, their bright colours immediately placing us in central or south America and we can feel the heat of the sun and the smell of the plants as we inhabit the artist’s viewpoint at the centre of the composition. A vibrant lithographic print, the work spans across two sheets to fit everything in, emphasising the unnatural angle of the scene which, in its scope, recalls many of Hockney’s photographic collages, in which the artist attempted to represent perspective as he saw it, in order to ‘feel space’.