Having experienced two different Van Gogh immersives last year, we’re quite hooked. So we jumped at the chance to visit the David Hockney immersive in Manchester. The full title, David Hockney: Bigger and Closer (not Smaller and Further Away), was explained later.
We love David Hockney’s work. As frequent visitors to Salt’s Mill we love the Hockney-themed Diner and the exhibitions of his works - most recently his Normandy-themed paintings, created on a number of iPads.
This venue was very different. Described as a ‘cultural space’, the Aviva Studios opened in 2023 and is one of Manchester’s newest cool venues. We loved the upbeat vibe.
The immersive show lasted about an hour and Hockney narrated most of it. This gave a fascinating insight into his approaches to painting (he calls himself a painter, not an artist). One section covered perspective and he explained in quite a lot of detail how perspective works and how he incorporates it into his paintings.
The immersive used an array of high quality projectors to project detailed images onto four walls and also, on occasions, the floor. The laser precision meant that there few shadows which made us feel as if we were really inside the paintings.
We’ll be looking out for more immersive experiences this year.
