David Hockney: A Year in Normandie and Some Other Thoughts about Painting
One of the most influential contemporary artists, David Hockney, invites viewers to slow down and reconsider the everyday in a new exhibition at the Serpentine Galleries. Conceived in close collaboration with the artist, the show marks Hockney’s first presentation at the institution and centres on his enduring fascination with observation, light, and the quiet beauty of ordinary moments.
At the heart of the exhibition is A Year in Normandie, a monumental ninety-metre-long frieze making its London debut. Inspired by the historic Bayeux Tapestry, the work unfolds as a continuous visual narrative, charting the shifting seasons around Hockney’s former studio in Normandy. Through changing colours, forms, and moods, the piece reflects the passage of time with an almost meditative rhythm.
Installed within the Serpentine’s setting in Kensington Gardens, the exhibition creates a subtle dialogue between Hockney’s painted landscapes and the real, living environment just beyond the gallery walls. This interplay between art and nature reinforces the artist’s long-held belief that attentive looking can reveal extraordinary richness in even the simplest surroundings.
New paintings, also created specifically for the exhibition, further develop Hockney’s exploration of perception and place. Together, the works form an immersive experience that encourages viewers to pause, observe, and reconsider their relationship with the world around them.
The exhibition positions Hockney not only as a painter of landscapes, but as a chronicler of time itself — capturing fleeting moments and transforming them into something enduring. It offers a timely reminder that in an age of speed and distraction, there is still value in looking closely.
