Middle Plane #5

This issue reads as an imagined visual interview with Hockney, whose career has spanned eight decades, making him one of the most prolifc and revered artists in the world. Known for his bold use of colour and embrace of innovation and modernity, Hockney’s oeuvre is the ideal springboard for Middle Plane’s creative collaborators:

Bruno Wollheim, director of the ‘David Hockney: A Bigger Picture’ has penned a meditation on Hockney’s relationship with roads, and his own experience of travelling with the artist. Sam Rock has documented Hockney’s hometown of Bradford and Saltaire, and its people, as well as collaborating with hair stylist Anthony Turner for a story that nods to Hockney's assertion that "blondes have more fun", an idea he derived from watching a Clairol TV ad, afer which he begun to bleach his own hair.

Dutch creative duo Blommers & Schumm have created physical collages from diferent objects, and fashion by Bottega Veneta, which draw on Hockney’s daily drawings on fowers and his love of portraiture. A fashion story by Ilya Lipkin deals with sculptural presentation subjects that occupy the same room but do not interact, like the people of Hockney’s portraits who sit side by side but never quite meet each other’s gaze.

American artist Roe Ethridge has contributed a still life series of his own interpretation of Hockney’s work, and the British artist Paul Elliman has created signature prints of found images exploring male form and sexuality.

This issue also includes archival work from Martin Parr with the theme of domestic spaces, and work from various photographers who have captured swimming pools over time – both subjects to which Hockney has returned again and again.