This painting is one of a series of large-scale single and double figure paintings made in Hockney's Hollywood Hills studio in 2005. Hockney paints directly onto canvas, letting the surface of the canvas show through the paint in areas and become a part of the painting's aesthetic. The work was created without preparatory sketches or photographic reference. Hockney presumably looked into a mirror for this piece, which gives a sense of distance between the plane of the viewer and the subjects. It feels as though the viewer is in the space behind the mirror, rather than taking the position of the mirror because of the distance Hockney would have had from the mirror.
The work sets up a triangular exchange of gazes between the figures and the viewer; Charlie looks at Hockney, Hockney looks out at the viewer, and the viewer may look at either figure, or both. The tangible energy an exchange of gazes in an artwork can generate is something I may look to reimagine in my own work.
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