Homage to Van Gogh 1 ~ Limited Edition Print on Canvas
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"Image Size: 66""x48"" This triptych of T. F. Chen's ""Homage to Vincent van Gogh"" is composed of two of Van Gogh's self-portraits and one of his sunflower images, all of which Chen has aggrandized and modified. The enlarged portraits with multi-colored panel backgrounds stand at the left and right, while the large sunflower painting appears in the middle. Among the more than 2,000 artworks that Van Gogh produced in his lifetime, perhaps his most remarkable and memorable images are his self-portraits and his depictions of sunflowers. Thus, in homage to the great master that inspired Chen to be an artist, Chen has selected these subjects as the basis for his triptych. Among the 42 self-portraits that Vincent had painted, Chen selected the ""Self-Portrait"" (1888) dedicated to Paul Gauguin and the ""Self-Portrait with Gray Felt Hat"" (1887). The first looks like an Oriental face, the second is constructed of short, energetic, expressive color strokes. Chen deliberately repeated the image of the portrait onto the background as decor. He accomplished this through a multiple block-printing process similar to silk-screen painting, with the help of hand-cut stencils and the direct application of acrylic colors. Thus, Van Gogh's portraits are not only enlarged to a monumental presentation, but also echoed in the background by multiple variants of the same image divided into small panels extending out of the canvas. Replicating an image through hand-cut screens or photo-screens is a favorite process used by many pop artists, such as Andy Warhol and Robert Rauschenberg. Warhol's most known repetition series are those of Marilyn Monroe, Mona Lisa, Coca- Cola bottles, and Campbell soup cans. His style of art reveals a characteristic of the assembly line, mass productive society of our consumer age, which engraves these popular images into our memory through the force of repetition. This approach was not invented by Pop artists, however, but dates back to an ancient technique of 9th Century China, where we can find repetitious images of the Buddha in quite a few block-painting illustrations of religious sutras. These omni-present images of the saints, like the mantras chanted unceasingly throughout the temple, were intended to keep the worshipper in the holy mind of the Buddha. Vincent's magnificent ""Sunflower Series"" which he accomplished in Arles is a beautiful, glorious contribution to art history. In Chen's version of ""Sunflowers,"" the structure of the bouquet remains the same, but the inside rings of each flower are treated in strong complementary colors of red-green, yellow-violet, and blue-orange. Chen used bands of black and white to accentuate the picture and a background of brilliant orange. This presentation resonates with the style of Chinese folk art, in which prime colors dominate. Thus, with ""Sunflowers"" at the center and two of Van Gogh's ""Self-Portraits"" facing each other on the sides, Chen offers his triptych in homage to Vincent van Gogh, a humble salute to his hero! ( by T. F. and Julie Chen ) "