Title: Alis’ Like Vincent’s
Medium: Paper Collage
Size: 12” x 8”
Year: 2021
Description:
Alis’ like Vincent’s…
is a mixed media paper collage created for the Salvador Dali Museum’s “Paint Your Bedroom Contest,” a promotional event associated with the “Van Gogh Alive” exhibit in 2021.
I appreciated the opportunity presented by this contest, as it provided timely motivation and direction for my next project.
These elements informed the palette and…
composition of my collage. Rather than depicting my own bedroom, I based the work on my studio, with modifications such as rendering the window green, transforming a blue sofa into a yellow bed with a red blanket, converting the carpet into a wooden plank floor, and painting the French doors blue.
The contest invited participants to submit Van Gogh-inspired paintings of their bedrooms, drawing upon the aesthetic of Van Gogh’s Bedroom in Arles. My approach was guided by the distinctive colors in his work—the blue walls (a result of fading from purple), the green window, the yellow bed with a red blanket, and the brown (originally pink) wooden plank floor.
I considered several aspects of…
the collage successful; notably, the depiction of the St. Petersburg sailboat poster and the brown plank floor, which included traces of green along the planks reminiscent of Van Gogh’s technique. Collage affords the opportunity to incorporate images and text from diverse papers, and for this piece, I primarily used magazine pages.
Given the constraints imposed by the Covid pandemic and the nascent stage of my paper collection for my Venice studio, magazines became my primary source material. Magazine text was employed creatively, such as representing the piano keys.
The collage was constructed on…
a compact 9″x12″ board, presenting challenges in precision cutting for small shapes. I was particularly satisfied with the successful execution of the black eyeglasses placed atop the background cabinet.
