winter 2010
a bigger splash

hailwood’s winter collection is based on the 1974 jack hazan film on david hockney and his painting ‘a bigger splash’, painted in the late sixties and depicting the strong horizontals and verticals of a los angeles home.

the only section to break the balanced and cool abstraction of the work is the diagonally placed diving board and the exuberant splash as an unseen diver enters the pool. “there is no visible human presence,” says hailwood. “just that lonely, empty chair, and a bare, almost frozen world,” he says.

“yet that wild white splash can only come from another human being, whose presence dominates the painting. a great deal of hockney’s psyche is reflected in the mixture of lucidity and confusion of this picture,” he says.

‘like the picture, the collection has hidden depths that take longer to assimilate than its immediate joyful and decorative appeal.’