Painted Environment I

Painted Environment I, released in 1993 in an edition of 25, is one in a series of prints constituting the Painted Environment series, depicts a painted canvas set in a room, with a similar abstract pattern on the walls and floor as that covering the canvas. In this sense, the room is merely an extension of the artwork displayed and the boundaries between room and artwork verge on being indistinguishable. Hockney, throughout his career, has been occupied with challenging the conventions of picture-making. Hockney also revels in highlighting the assumptions required for a viewer to read a picture. That is to say, many of Hockney’s artworks and photographs concern making and looking at pictures. In Painted Environment I, the painting is the subject matter but also the setting. Hence, Hockney is challenging the traditional conventions of what constitutes an artwork and picture making. Such concerns have endured throughout Hockney’s artistic career.