Artistic and Philosophical Conceptualization of "Reflecting the Existence of Women in the Steps"

This work, anchored in the Xanthopsia collection, reinterprets Village Street and Stairs in Auvers with two figures in a hybrid allegory that blends subrealism, unconventional abstraction, and mixed media. It explores the symbolic permanence of female roles throughout the ages, while questioning stereotypes related to "steps"—a metaphor for struggles, progress, and the physical or social spaces women traverse.

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Levels of Interpretation and Techniques

- Philosophical:

Van Gogh's stairs, transformed into a cyclical or fragmented structure, symbolize the eternal renewal of women's challenges. The stop-motion animation evokes cyclical time (Nietzsche) and the illusion of linear progress. The superimposition of manual and digital layers embodies the duality between historical heritage and contemporary reinvention.

- Artistic:

By hybridizing acrylic paint, oil pastels on cardboard, and digital clipping, the work defies aesthetic categories. Subrealism emerges here through perspective distortions and layers of digital paint and creates a form of semi-transparency, creating a tension between the tangible and the ephemeral. The palette, dominated by altered yellows (Xanthopsia), recalls Van Gogh's utopian light, but tinged with digital shadows, symbolizing the quest for positivity in adversity.

- Semantics:

The "steps" become polysemic: physical stairs, protest marches, or psychological stages. Van Gogh's two original figures are reinterpreted as abstract silhouettes, multiplied in animated variations, highlighting the universality of women's labors. The title itself plays on the homophony between "steps" and "marks," inviting reflection on the gendered imprint in public spaces.

- Psychological:

The contrasting textures—the roughness of pastel versus the fluidity of digital technology—embody inner conflicts between resignation and rebellion. The animation, through its slightly altered repetition, evokes the mechanisms of resilience or confinement within imposed roles.

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Link with Van Gogh and Duality

Van Gogh, in his Auvers-sur-Oise period, captured the tensions between natural order and emotional chaos. Here, this duality is transposed to feminine experiences:

- The organic curves of the staircases (inspired by Van Gogh's twisted cypress trees) interact with digital geometric angles, symbolizing the clash between creative freedom and rigid social structures. - The manual clipping technique recalls Van Gogh's expressive brushstrokes, but their digitization transforms them into repetitive patterns, a critique of the systems that standardize female existence.

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Technical Innovation as Manifesto

The use of laminated collage and fragmented animation challenges the passivity of the traditional medium. Each animated image becomes a palimpsest, where the physical gesture (painting) and the virtual (digital layers) coexist without merging, reflecting the multiplicity of female identities. This process recalls William S. Burroughs' cut-ups, but applied to Post-Impressionist iconography, creating a dialogue between past and present.

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Conclusion:

This subrealist reinterpretation of Van Gogh does not simply pay homage to a master; it uses his visual grammar to deconstruct archetypes. By merging craftsmanship and technology, it embodies an archaeology of the future—where the “steps” become both a legacy to be climbed and a prison to be dismantled. The Xanthopsia collection, with its oxymoron of dystopian light, asserts that contemporary art must be a distorting mirror, capable of revealing the invisible in the familiar.

Tribute to Van Gogh: Village street and stairs in Auvers with two figures

See the original at : private collection in japan