Painted Flowers

Painted Flowers

I painted an Eden of Flowers Divine

I painted an Eden of Flowers Divine

 

 

“The sun shone in between, and all the little white flowers sparkled. … I went on painting at the risk and peril of seeing the whole show on the ground at any moment -- it's a white effect with a good deal of yellow in it, and blue and lilac, the sky white and blue.”
Letter to Theo van Gogh, c.11 April 1888 by Vincent Van Gogh

 

The intensity, poetics and singularity of joy that Van Gogh brought to the art of painting flowers remains unrivalled in the annals of art history. In terms of adjusted prices Van Gogh remains the highest priced artist for his paintings of flowers. His ‘Irises’ were priced at more than $100 million (adjusted) and his ‘Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers’ for more than $ 75 million (adjusted).

 

Before Van Gogh flower painting was a part of Still Life painting tradition. But he changed it all. A man who painted seriously only for two years of his life changed the way we look at flowers and sunflowers specially.

 

Of other artists who loved to paint flowers the name of American Georgia O’Keeffe comes at the top. Matisse painted flowers largely as part art decorativ style. His flowers carry the flat two dimensionality but are saturated with pure colours as per Fauvist tradition.

 

True to his Pop Art style Andy Warhol painted flowers as silk screen portfolios of flat colour surfaces reminding about the unreality of ‘representation’.

 

Artist friend Baljit S. Chadha has a lasting honeymoon with flowers in his artistic expression. He paints some times with frugality of a Zen master. I can understand that as he had his early training in painting in Japan where he lived and studied as a teenager and had the benefit of the tutelage of great Japanese masters. But his present series on flowers nonplussed me with wonder and joy. He has in the present works a new dimension and a new personality of flowers that I have not seen before. This is because he has distilled the expression from his inner joy and happiness that is the essence of flowers per se and not from their forms.

His flowers have a nearly expressionistic, abstract persona. He uses a watercolour like free flow of colour and tonalities to invest his work with a sensual poetry. His works are acrylic on paper and therefore amenable to idiosyncratic overflows that lends a fresh charm to his oeuvre.

Another landmark quality of Baljit’s new works is that they are rendered in fiery shiny glazes. As we know glazes are traditionally done in oil paint medium. But Baljit has worked them with acrylic colour and without the use of pure impasto. The colours diluted with water float and embrace each other and still have lustrous intensity.

Baljit Chadha has created a fresh stylistic edifice and his creative expression jumps from the visible-familiar to spiritually felt flowers in a divine Eden.

 

Viktor Vijay Kumar

Director Curator

European Artists’ Association

Germany

 

 

About the Author

Viktor Vijay Kumar
Painter
Director and Curator (India Asia) European Artists Association Velbert Essen Germany

Fine arts—painting, assemblage art, autodidact.
Worked in ateliers with Late Prof. Klaus Neuper, Neurmberg; Georg Brandner Leoben Austria and Wolfgang Brenner Westphalia Germany

115 solo/group exhibitions of which 56 abroad including Germany, Austria, Finland, Slovakia, Hungary, Turkey, Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, Singapore Italy and U.S.A.

What is the best and safe spray paint to paint fake flowers with?

I am using some fake flowers in my Xmas decorations made of cloth. I wanted to spray them a little with some gold or silver but keep some of their original color. I just need to know which is the safest spray paint out there for this. And yes, I will be using lights with them.

I would not use a spray paint on the artificial flowers. Spray paint tends to mist on everything. I would use a good craft paint that can be applied with a stiff bristle brush to just the areas of the flowers you want painted. Craft stores carry small bottles of gold and silver paints, many others colors too. You will be able to do this indoors. You would never want to spray paint inside. Good luck and I hope you Christmas project turns out nice.

All Time Low -Painted Flowers (Alice and Wonderland Soundtrack) + DOWNLOAD