The composition is unmistakable: van Gogh’s Sunflowers, among the most recognisable images in the canon. Here, colour has been stripped away. What remains is structure — line, shape, placement — the framework of the painting without its chromatic force.
In the Christian mystical tradition, via negativa approaches understanding through absence. The removal of colour becomes less an act of subtraction than a change in register. The original persists, but differently felt.
This is neither reproduction nor appropriation. The flowers are present, yet altered. Their vitality is muted, their surface quietened. What remains is contour, interval, pause.
Via Negativa names the gesture but does not close it. Meaning seems less declared than withheld. The image stands in its reduction, suspended between presence and absence.
Exhibited:
2009. A Blacker Gold, Haunch of Venison, Berlin
2010. Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy, London
2012. Power Flower, Galerie ABTART, Stuttgart, Germany
2018. 2018. The times they are a-changin. Galerie Bastian ,Berlin
Further reading;
