Going deaf has sharpened my art, David Hockney says

PARIS (AP) — Renowned British painter David Hockney says his hearing loss has helped sharpen his sense of space and perspective.

Speaking Tuesday at a retrospective of his work at Paris’ Pompidou Center, Hockney said: “If you lose one sense, you gain other senses, and I feel I could see space clearer. I put it down to the hearing loss. … I can’t tell what sound is coming from where.”

Ever curious and innovative, the 80-year-old artist said he’s currently working on reverse perspective paintings.

Hockney donated a huge work to the Pompidou Center, “The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate, East Yorkshire,” that’s part of the traveling retrospective opening in Paris this week.

Hockney’s depictions of sun-dappled Los Angeles swimming pools and wooded Yorkshire hills are among the best-known images in contemporary art.