My work, rooted in a subrealist and unconventional reinterpretation of Van Gogh, embodies a dialectic between tradition and modernity, materiality and the virtual, despair and resilience. By hybridizing acrylic paint on cardboard (reminiscent of post-impressionist craftsmanship) and digital animation, I create a visual palimpsest where the technical layers symbolize layers of philosophical meaning: the inner fire, lingering on the ashes of rejection and darkness.

1. Subrealist Abstraction and Existential Duality

The superimposition of the hand-cut tracing over Van Gogh's original work evokes an archaeology of emotion. Van Gogh's peasant, a symbol of labor and struggle, here becomes a spectrally animated silhouette, transformed by fluctuating digital projections. This formal choice reflects an abstraction that transcends reality rather than denying it: flames, once literal in Van Gogh's work, are transformed into pulsating digital patterns, symbols of an unalterable vital energy. The mixed media thus embodies the coexistence of opposites—destruction/creation, chaos/harmony—dear to Van Gogh, while also updating his quest for universality through the digital prism.

2. Xanthopsia: Perceptual Utopia and Ethics of Light

The collection's title (yellow vision) refers to a chromatic hallucination dominated by yellow—an omnipresent color in Van Gogh's work, associated with hope and creative madness. My reinterpretation transposes this sensory "anomaly" into an allegory of resistance to cynicism. Here, yellow is no longer just a pigment, but a processual light: the digital animation injects a temporal dynamic into the static canvas, suggesting that positivity is actively cultivated, like a fire fueled frame by frame. This approach echoes the Stoic philosophy of amor fati—loving one's destiny even in adversity—but roots it in a digital aesthetic, where each frame becomes an act of perseverance.

3. Meditative Reinvention and Transformed Legacy

By integrating a contemplative dimension (via the organic texture of the painting) and latent interactivity (animation suggesting infinite movement), I question the sustainability of classical art. Van Gogh, who saw nature as a field of contradictory forces, is reinterpreted here through a media ecology: cardboard evokes fragility, digital technology evokes ephemerality, but their fusion creates a dialectical permanence. The work does not simply produce a tribute; it simulates a dialogue with the master, where compassion and kindness become visual algorithms, animated loops defying immobility.

4. Philosophy of Fire: From Book Burning to Regeneration

The title "Cultivating Fire" resonates like a manifesto. For Van Gogh, burning weeds was an agricultural gesture, a metaphor for purification. You make it an act of preservation: fire is no longer destructive but internal, a transformative energy. Acrylic, through its opacity, contrasts with digital translucency, illustrating the tension between the opacity of prints and the clarity of intention. This duality reflects human ambivalence, but also the idea that art, like fire, requires fuel (experience) and breath (technique) to persist.

Conclusion: A Digital Humanism

Xanthopsia goes beyond simple homage to propose an artistic ontology where perceptual alteration becomes a tool for lucidity. By blending artisanal gestures with digital abstraction, I update Van Gogh's lesson: art as an outlet and mirror of inner conflicts. “Cultivating Fire” is not a naive celebration of positivity, but an active recognition of complexity—a call to embrace paradoxes to better transcend darkness.

Tribute to Van Gogh :  Peasant Burning Weeds

See the original work at: Drents Museum