Iranian Artist Shows Van Gogh’s Life With Stunning Illustrations

Vincent van Gogh is one of the best known artists in history, both for his work and for his life, marked by sadness and loneliness. These two closely related aspects are reflected by Iranian cartoonist Alireza Karimi Moghaddam in a colorful series of illustrations that show the post-impressionist painter from an innovative angle.

O awesome.club spoke with the artist and shows some of his works that recover Van Gogh’s brushstrokes in the digital world and combine the drama of a turbulent biography with touches of humor.

Moghaddam shares his admiration for Van Gogh, imagining him in the different situations that inspired his work. In one of the illustrations, for example, he is looking at the sky and there are the same brushstrokes that the painter later incorporated into the starry night, one of his most emblematic works.

The drawing shows the Dutchman under the night sky, although the painting was done in the confines of the Saint-Rémy-de-Provence sanatorium, where the artist was kept at the end of his life for his mental health problems.

The Iranian, who currently lives in Lisbon, also drew Van Gogh riding a bicycle in the middle of a field of sunflowers, a plant that he immortalized in a series of famous paintings produced during his stay in the city of Arles and that allowed him to use yellow, your favorite color. In another drawing, Moghaddam plays with the situation and imagines the artist taking a selfie with a cell phone.

“I think of the same time and place as the painter and try to see him from a new angle, in a way no one has seen him before. Of course, with a little humor. Watching movies about Vincent van Gogh’s story and reading books and articles about his life help me to be more precise about this great artist,” he told Incrível exclusively.

The cheerful colors of the illustrations do not mean that the dark part of Van Gogh’s life is not portrayed: a youth that he defined as “sad, cold and sterile”, unrequited love, mental health problems, economic and emotional dependence on his father. brother Theo, the complicated relationship with the artist Paul Gauguin, which ended with a severed earlobe, and an early death at age 37 from a gunshot wound in one confusing episode.

“His life and his paintings are full of drama and this is the secret of his popularity. In fact, I didn’t do anything important. I just tried to see Van Gogh’s drama from a new angle. He did everything, my job is simple. Love, helping the poor, rejection from family, poverty, loneliness, and finally murder or suicide. These are the elements that can create a fascinating story and Van Gogh had them all,” said Moghaddam.

Moghaddam, who has a master’s degree in Graphic Design, has been dedicated to illustration for 30 years and has won several international awards, discovered Van Gogh’s work as a teenager. Since then, he has been fascinated by the color, composition, and lighting of his work. But, above all, for the meaning of his paintings.

“In my opinion, he became one of the most influential painters in the world because of his sincerity in expressing the meaning of his paintings. His suffering is quite evident in his work and is the reason why more than half of the people in the world admire him,” he commented.

The illustrations are done digitally with an optical pen and with the help of Photoshop. For now, they can only be seen on Moghaddam’s Instagram account, which has around 30,000 followers.

However, the cartoonist is trying to organize an exhibition of his works in Lisbon for the next few weeks and, as he himself defines, there is no lack of reasons for the exhibition to finally become a reality: “Van Gogh is one of the few artists whose life and work had a big impact on people.”

What do you think of this cartoonist’s illustrations? Are there current or past artists that you look up to? Share your thoughts with us in the comments section.