Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) presents David Hockney’s fresh flowers: Drawings on the iPhone and iPad on view until January 1, 2012.

Premiering in North America at the Institute for Contemporary Culture (ICC), this cutting-edge exhibition reveals David Hockney’s extraordinary use of a new medium, and its impact on shaping visual culture today. Hockney is one of the world’s most acclaimed contemporary artists, and Fresh Flowers is his first major show in Canada in over two decades.

David Hockney began working with the iPhone in 2008. He’s since created hundreds of finger-drawn images using the Brushes app, ranging in subject from flowers and self-portraits to landscapes and still life. These colourful digital drawings were first created to email to his friends.

In 2009 the Fondation Pierre Bergé/Yves Saint Laurent mounted an exhibition of Hockney’s iPhone drawings in Paris. Its title, Fleurs fraîches, also served as a metaphor for the unique way in which he is able to insert new drawings into exhibitions via email, while the exhibitions are being viewed in galleries around the world.

The ICC exhibition features approximately 100 iPhone drawings displayed on 20 iPods, as well as an additional 100 iPad drawings on 25 iPads. Twenty drawings in the exhibition will feature playback animations of the works being drawn from start to finish, allowing viewers insight into the artist’s creative process. Fresh Flowers will also include two films of Hockney working on an iPad, eight large-scale animated projections of recent iPad drawings, and a nine-minute triptych slide show with an additional 169 images.

Fresh Flowers marks the ROM’s first WiFi accessible exhibition: visitors can share their experiences online, in real time. The exhibition includes a 56-page catalogue in French and English featuring an essay by Hockney on his works on the iPhone and iPad, created for the exhibition in Paris, and available at the ROM Museum Store.

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