When David Hockney, widely regarded as Britain’s greatest living painter, first began experimenting with digital drawing applications in the late 2000s, the art establishment reacted with a mixture of curiosity and skepticism. How could a medium defined by backlit pixels and glass screens replicate the tactile immediacy of oil on canvas or the delicate wash of watercolour? More than a decade later, Hockney has definitively answered that question. In December 2023, the artist unveiled Bigger Christmas Trees, a monumental digital installation projected onto the towering facade of London’s Battersea Power Station.
Running every evening from the 1st of December through to Christmas Day, the ten-minute animated loop transformed two of the building’s iconic 100-metre-high chimneys into vibrant, glowing Christmas trees. Created entirely on an iPad Pro using an Apple Pencil, the artwork represents a spectacular convergence of architectural heritage, corporate patronage, and contemporary digital art. It is a work that not only redefines the possibilities of public installation but also reinforces Hockney’s status as a relentless innovator who refuses to be constrained by the traditional boundaries of the gallery space.
The Canvas: Sir Giles Gilbert Scott’s Art Deco Masterpiece
To understand the impact of Bigger Christmas Trees, one must first appreciate the staggering scale and historical weight of the canvas upon which it was displayed. Battersea Power Station is not merely a building; it is a titan of Britain’s industrial past and an enduring symbol of the London skyline. Designed in the 1930s by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott—the same architectural visionary responsible for the classic red telephone box and the Tate Modern—the Grade II* listed building is a masterclass in brick cathedral architecture. For decades, its four soaring wash towers, or chimneys, stood derelict, haunting the edge of the River Thames as a magnificent, decaying monument to coal-powered industry.
Following a multi-billion-pound redevelopment project, the power station reopened in 2022 as a sprawling retail, leisure, and residential complex. Significantly, its cavernous boiler house is now home to the UK headquarters of Apple. It is this corporate residency that catalyzed Hockney’s installation. By projecting his work onto the north facade’s chimneys, Hockney effectively reclaimed this industrial behemoth for the realm of visual culture. The ribbed, fluted concrete of the chimneys—structures originally designed to expel noxious gases—became a luminous beacon of festive colour. It is a striking juxtaposition: the heavy, immovable permanence of 1930s brickwork serving as the foundation for the transient, weightless light of twenty-first-century contemporary digital art.
A Digital Renaissance: Hockney and the iPad Pro
Hockney’s relationship with Apple technology is well-documented, representing a sustained and rigorous exploration of a new medium rather than a late-career novelty. His journey began in 2007 with the iPhone and the Brushes app, famously sending digital bouquets of flowers to his friends every morning. By 2010, he had adopted the newly released iPad, a device that offered a larger screen and greater control, eventually leading to his critically acclaimed The Arrival of Spring series, documenting the changing seasons in East Yorkshire and later in Normandy.
The iPad, for Hockney, is not a compromise; it is an evolution. It eliminates the need for physical paint, allowing for an immediacy of mark-making that traditional wet media cannot match. Mistakes can be undone instantly; layers can be built up without waiting for pigment to dry; and colors can be selected with impossible vibrancy due to the screen’s backlighting.
For Bigger Christmas Trees, Hockney utilized the iPad Pro and the Apple Pencil to draft his vision. The resulting animation is quintessentially Hockney. The trees are not photorealistic renderings but stylized, expressive interpretations of the festive archetype. They bristle with energetic, jagged lines—strokes that retain the unmistakable kinetic energy of the artist’s hand. In a statement released through Apple, Hockney summarized his motivation with characteristic simplicity: “Battersea Power Station is such a beautiful building, I wanted to decorate it in a way that I hoped would bring joy and hope to Londoners.”
This desire to democratize joy through accessible, vividly colored art has been a defining characteristic of Hockney’s late period. By eschewing the rarefied air of Mayfair galleries in favor of a public landmark, he effectively invited the entire city to participate in the viewing experience.
Engineering the Illusion: The Mechanics of Projection Mapping
While Hockney’s iPad served as the genesis of the artwork, translating an intimate, digital file drawn on a 12.9-inch screen onto a curved, ribbed concrete surface standing a hundred metres tall required a staggering degree of technical ingenuity. This monumental task fell to 59 Productions, a multi-award-winning design studio renowned for their expertise in video projection and immersive environments.
59 Productions is no stranger to complex visual spectacles. The studio previously provided the video design for the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games and collaborated with Hockney earlier in 2023 on the critically acclaimed immersive exhibition David Hockney: Bigger & Closer (not smaller and further away) at London’s Lightroom. However, the Battersea project presented entirely unique challenges.
Projection mapping—the technique used to turn irregularly shaped objects into display surfaces for video projection—is notoriously difficult when dealing with cylindrical architecture. The team at 59 Productions had to meticulously map the topographical nuances of the two northern chimneys. They had to account for the curvature of the towers, the texture of the restored concrete, and the ambient light pollution of a bustling metropolitan riverfront. To ensure that Hockney’s vivid greens, radiant golds, and deep blues were not diluted by the night sky, highly specialized, high-lumen projectors were strategically positioned around the site.
The resulting ten-minute animation was not a static image but a living, breathing digital organism. The artwork looped continuously from 5:00 p.m. to 10:30 p.m., ensuring that the trees appeared to grow, shimmer, and gently undulate against the dark winter sky. The technical execution was flawless, preserving the integrity of Hockney’s original iPad strokes while magnifying them to an awe-inspiring, architectural scale.
Reimagining Corporate Patronage and Public Art
Bigger Christmas Trees cannot be fully understood without examining the role of corporate patronage in modern public art. Apple’s presence at Battersea Power Station is a crucial factor; this installation was, at its core, a collaboration between one of the world’s most valuable technology companies and an artist who has spent over a decade championing their hardware.
Historically, large-scale public art was primarily funded by the state, local municipalities, or religious institutions. Today, we are witnessing a paradigm shift where major technology conglomerates are stepping into the role of the modern Medici. Apple’s funding and facilitation of Hockney’s vision at Battersea represents a sophisticated form of brand activation. By intertwining their flagship product (the iPad Pro) with the cultural capital of Britain’s most famous living artist, Apple positioned itself not merely as a manufacturer of consumer electronics, but as a crucial enabler of high art.
Yet, despite the inherent corporate synergy, the installation transcended mere advertising. It succeeded purely on its artistic merits. In a city where access to major exhibitions often requires expensive tickets and months of advance booking, Hockney’s projection offered something radically different: world-class art, presented at a monumental scale, completely free of charge to anyone walking along the Thames. It functioned as a communal focal point, drawing diverse crowds who gathered on the riverbank to witness the spectacle, snapping their own photographs and sharing the experience across social networks. In this sense, the installation operated perfectly within the tradition of grand public art installations, fostering a shared cultural moment in an increasingly fragmented digital age.
A Luminous Legacy
As the festive season of 2023 concluded and the projectors were powered down, the immediate physical presence of Bigger Christmas Trees faded, but its cultural impact was firmly cemented. The installation proved that Battersea Power Station’s chimneys could serve as one of the most compelling artistic canvases in the world. More importantly, it established a new festive tradition for the capital. The success of Hockney’s vision paved the way for future interventions, evidenced by the fact that the acclaimed animation studio Aardman—creators of Wallace & Gromit—took up the mantle for the power station’s projection in the winter of 2024.
For David Hockney, the project stands as yet another testament to his extraordinary versatility and his refusal to stagnate. At an age when most artists have long since settled into a comfortable, established routine, Hockney continues to push the boundaries of scale, medium, and accessibility. Bigger Christmas Trees was not just a festive decoration; it was a bold declaration of the enduring power of image-making. It demonstrated that whether wielding a sable brush loaded with oil paint or an Apple Pencil gliding across a glass screen, Hockney’s fundamental gift remains unchanged: the ability to force us to stop, look, and find joy in the act of seeing.