Some information about his life and artwork that were shared on the exhibition:

• optical illusions in mapping effect come one after another such as shrinking walls to represent the state of mind which he was in.
• is it madness that makes an artistic genius of him?
• several trips to paris gave him the opportunity to enjoy the rich artistic life of the city, and to visit museums and art galleries.
• attracted by the luminous nature of the southern skies, and the warm colours, he left for the south of France, deciding to settle in arles.
• he was troubled throughout his life by poor mental health (epilepsy and schizophrenia), the crises became more frequent and more violent.
• in February 1888 he travelled to arles, france, where he moved into the yellow house. while there, he painted the bedroom, he was joined by paul gauguin. Their often contentious friendship deteriorated as Van Gogh’s psychotic events grew more frequent. following an argument with Gauguin Vincent mutilated his own ear on December 23. As a result, Gauguin left Arles.
• 1889: after the mutilation, the artist lived alternately between a psychiatric hospital and the yellow house. During this period he produced works such as the starry night, an abstraction of the view from his room at the asylum.
• The sunflowers: the second series of sunflowers he paints during 1888 and 1889 depicting the sunflowers in a vase are the most famous ones. sunflowers were in vogue during the 1870’s. van gogh’s first painting from the sunflowers series is displayed in a restaurant-cafe in Paris , where gauguin discovered it. This recognition from someone vang gogh so deeply admired, gave him the encouragement to move into a studio in Arles.. Once established in Arles, in 1888, e writes to his brother:

“In the hope of living in a studio of our own with Gauguin, I’d like to do a decoration for the studio. Nothing but large Sunflowers.Next door to your shop, in the restaurant, as you know, there’s such a beautiful decoration of flowers there; I still remember the big sunflower in the window.5 Well, if I carry out this plan there’ll be a dozen or so panels. The whole thing will therefore be a symphony in blue and yellow. I work on it all these mornings, from sunrise. Because the flowers wilt quickly and it’s a matter of doing the whole thing in one go.”

he hung several of his sunflowers in the guest room intended for Gauguin, who will later describe these works as “a perfect page of an essential “vincent style”

By choosing sunflowers, flowers which characteristically regrow, and by displaying them at their different phases of life, all within the one arrangement, van gogh creates a metaphor for the cycle of life.

• “instead of trying to reproduce exactly what I see before me, I make more arbitrary use of color to express myself more forcefully”
• vincent’s aggressive and disorderly character also made the cohabitation with gauguin intense. Gauguin describe him using this words: ” in spite of all this disorder, this mess, something shone out of his canvasses and out of his talk too.” their artistic perspective was wildly divergent: vincent painted from nature while gauguin encouraged his friend to paint from memory they had “incompatibility of temperaments”. December 1888 23rd a new argument broke out propped vincent to cut his own ear.
• the majority of his art was created in the last 10 years of his life, with an average of a new place every 36 hours.
• van gogh immediate surrounding were always a strong source of inspiration, and this was the case with the yellow house at arles on southern France. He lived here from february 1888 until december 1890, and built his first studio here. bedroom at arles: the dominant object of this oil painting is the solid and simple bed. seemingly violating the rules of perspective, van gogh explained the deliberate choice to his brother, theo. he wished to flatten the interior leaving out shadows, so that his picture resembled the japanese prints he found so inspiring. some of vincent’s paintings hang above the bed, giving us a clue as to the work he wished to surround himself with. The pieces, lament, poets, and painter aux etoiles, feature friends and colleagues. of the room’s palette, van gogh stated: ” I had wished to express utter repose with all these very detailed tones”. “when I saw my canvasses again after my illness, what seemed to me the best was the bedroom.” there are three different versions of this painting differencing in brightness and colour contrast. the pigmentation is quite unique in each version of the work.
• “I put my heart and my should into the work and have lost my mind in the process” plagued by hallucinations, van gogh asked to be committed.to the saint paul de mausoleum asylum. turning one room into a dedicated studio space, van gogh created 150 paintings and nearly 100 drawing in just one year. even in a time of great personal darkness, van gogh filled his canvas with light. he painted a myriad of works depicting the asylum. “I don’t know anything with certainty, but seeing the stars makes me dream”. Vincent relentless painting only ceased during periods of overwhelming psychosis. and only one painting emerged from such a crisis: a self-portrait. painted in the summer of 1889, van gogh’s image is muted; it represents a haunted reflection of the artist. the crumped, defeated figure is a heartbreaking portrait of a man overwhelmed by cruelties of existence.