Darden Smith

I blame David Hockney --
In the spring of 2015 I went to the Royal Academy in London to see the Richard Diebenkorn show. Being sufficiently awestruck and bewildered by those paintings, I stumbled into the RA's bookstore before heading out into the wilds of Piccadilly. A copy of David Hockney’s 'Bigger Book" was open in one corner of the room. A steal at £2500, the book was so big that it had its own stand. I stood there, leafing through the pages thinking about how color was an absolute mystery to me. I'd been drawing for years, but only in my notebooks with a pen. And the story that I'd been telling myself all those years is that I didn't understand color, so I shouldn't use it. Don't go there. Stick with my pens. Black and white.

But seeing page after page of Hockney's crazy palette of everyday life and the simple objects rendered in colors that in many ways weren't even close to what one might describe as "the right color," the idea hit me that color was like music – or at least my approach to it. You don't need to know all the rules, just some of them. You need a bit of knowledge of the basics, how things fit together. Then you have to just go off somewhere and work it out on your own. There was a Hockney quote in the book where he said something to this effect. I thought, yes, that's for me.

I turned around and there was a little box of watercolors on a table in the gift shop, something you might give a 10-year-old for their birthday. Without hesitation I picked up the box, found a couple of brushes and a small pad of paper, paid for them and walked out of the shop. The next day I was driving to a show and passed a man in a raincoat waiting to cross a street. The image stuck in my brain. I can still see him there. When I got to the hotel that afternoon, I opened up the little box of watercolors, got the paper and brush out and started painting.

And though I still don't know what I'm doing, I'm still doing it.
For this, I blame David Hockney.

– On the occasion of Hockney's death, June 2026

"The Sky Is Bluer Than You Think"
On view through May 30
Koelsch Gallery
1020 Peden, Houston TX 77066

On Saturday May 30 I'll be at the gallery from 4:00-6:00pm talking a bit about the work in the show, and singing a few things that go along with what's on the walls.

To see the works online, go to koelschgallery.com





Images:
Riot 19, Riot 3 - 22 x 30 inches; monoprint lithograph with chine collé
Printed in collaboration with Flatbed Press, Austin, TX

"The Sky Is Bluer Than You Think"
On view through May 30
Koelsch Gallery
1020 Peden, Houston TX 77066

On Saturday May 30 I'll be at the gallery from 4:00-6:00pm talking a bit about the work in the show, and singing a few things that go along with what's on the walls.

To see the works online, go to koelschgallery.com





Images:
Riot 10, Riot 16 - 22 x 30 inches; monoprint lithograph with chine collé
Printed in collaboration with Flatbed Press, Austin, TX