Actors Portraying Van Gogh (Kirk Douglas, Willem Dafoe, Tony Curran and Tim Roth)

Pencil on paper, frame size 30cm x 28cm each, 2020

Actors Portraying Van Gogh (Kirk Douglas, Willem Dafoe, Tony Curran and Tim Roth), is a series of pseudo-postcard drawings depicting four actors who have portrayed the artist Vincent Van Gogh in either film or television productions. Each image is taken from a film still of the actor playing the role. 

Figure Up Exhibition Text:

Van Gogh is one of the few artists who has transcended the canon of High Art. There are no known existing photographs of Van Gogh as an adult and the work highlights the extent to which our image of the artist is largely an invention, a fabrication by the popular culture industry and in particular the film industry. Considered a quiet, diffident individual by eyewitness accounts, the artist’s true personality has been largely substituted for the on-screen charisma of the actors who have played him. When one thinks of Van Gogh, the image of Kirk Douglas portraying the artist as a heroic, passionate figure, in the 1956 biopic, Lust for Life often springs to mind. A myth has been constructed that obscures and replaces the reality of the subject, highlighting the power of the cinema to alter and influence our perception of fact.

Of course, the myth in turn has led to the exponential increase in the artist’s popularity, and the mass production format of the postcard alludes to the fact that the artist has now become a brand, reproduced on a vast number of products.

The drawings are executed in pencil, they are double-sided and they are presented in two directional frames at right angles to the wall. The reverse side of the drawing mimics the standard information found on the back of promotional postcards. They list the name of the actor and details about the film production including its title and date of release.