pieces of myself in other artists’ journeys. This time, I found myself at the Fondation Louis Vuitton — a glass spaceship designed by Frank Gehry, floating in the middle of the Bois de Boulogne. One of Paris’s largest private playgrounds for contemporary art, it hosts two major exhibitions a year. And today, it belongs to David Hockney.

But let’s pause: who is Hockney, and why does he matter?

David Hockney is one of Britain’s most famous living artists. Known for his bright Californian swimming pools, his casual-yet-loaded double portraits, and landscapes that let color run wild, he has always painted the world with both boldness and intimacy. He reinvented perspective, layering viewpoints like collages of how our eyes actually wander.

And unlike many artists who get trapped in their own formula, Hockney kept moving: oils, photo collages, iPad sketches, immersive videos. Always restless, always curious. As a painter myself, I admire that. He reminds me that art isn’t about reaching perfection — it’s about staying alive to the world around you.

This exhibition is huge — eleven galleries filled with over 400 works, spanning seventy years of Hockney’s career. Pieces came from his own studio and collections across the globe.

The journey begins with portraits — including his 1955 teenage drawing of his father — then leaps into the electric chaos of Berlin: A Souvenir. From there, the show unfolds like a kaleidoscope: vibrant Normandie blossoms painted during lockdown, digital sketches born from iPads and iPhones, and Bigger Trees Near Warter — a monumental woodland painting that feels like walking straight into spring.

It is both overwhelming and intimate.

Hockney’s obsession with color, light, and perspective hits me at my core. His pool blues, layered landscapes, and double portraits mirror my own process of collecting fragments from the world: fabrics, shapes, details that later resurface in my paintings.

Traveling as an artist in exile, I am always looking. And Hockney, too, was always looking.

What stands out most is his refusal to be confined. Oils sit alongside iPad sketches. Photo collages and video installations stretch the idea of what painting can be. And yet, it doesn’t feel like a gimmick. It feels like a language.

Hockney embraced digital tools not as replacements but as extensions of his curiosity. That courage to keep evolving is a lesson I carry with me.

As a Myanmar artist, I connected to his landscapes and portraits of home. They carry nostalgia and longing, painted not just with the eye but with memory.

For me, exile means inhabiting places emotionally, carrying fragments of Myanmar even as I create in Paris. Hockney’s work reminded me that every landscape we paint is also an inner landscape — a memory, a loss, a place we want to hold onto.

Yes, I stopped by A Bigger Splash and Bigger Trees Near Warter. Just a respectful nod — like waving Bluetooth across time. Because how can you walk through Hockney without acknowledging the icons?

David Hockney 25 is not just a retrospective. It is a conversation between nostalgia and innovation, analogue and digital, memory and immediacy. Walking through it felt like a masterclass in staying alive as an artist — restless, curious, unafraid to play.

So let me leave you with a question:
If you could bring one thing from Hockney’s world into your own life, what would it be?

👉 Watch my full vlog from the exhibition here:

 You can watch my video reflection on this exhibition here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4pfqm3Wqx0

And if you know anything about Myanmar women artists before World War II, I would love to hear from you. Together, maybe we can start uncovering this history.