“My small painting entitled, “Vincent’s Light,” pays tribute to the gently hallucinogenic effects of Van Gogh’s lyrical 1888 composition, “The Starry Night.” His swirling night sky, carrying its cargo of stars, enters the room, dissolving the walls and ceiling, and making us the witnesses to the magical effects of Vincent’s vision. Only the vase of sunflowers, the candle and self portrait are maintaining their solid everyday reality, still immune from the tidal wave of blue and gold––at least for the moment. My imagined peek into the sensitive, unstable mind of Vincent Van Gogh combines two of his great loves: first the night, and then sunflowers. He painted both subjects repeatedly in his short life, always with an intensity that demands our attention and makes us curious about his emotional state. In his many letters he shows himself to be an intelligent, spiritual man. And art critic Albert Aurier, after his interview with Vincent, called him “an artist with the brutal hands of a giant, the nerves of an hysterical woman, and the soul of a mystic.” That seems a true and eloquent description of the man and the psyche my painting attempts to depict.” 

–– Jenness Cortez ––

“My small painting entitled, “Vincent’s Light,” pays tribute to the gently hallucinogenic effects of Van Gogh’s lyrical 1888 composition, “The Starry Night.” His swirling night sky, carrying its cargo of stars, enters the room, dissolving the walls and ceiling, and making us the witnesses to the magical effects of Vincent’s vision. Only the vase of sunflowers, the candle and self portrait are maintaining their solid everyday reality, still immune from the tidal wave of blue and gold––at least for the moment. My imagined peek into the sensitive, unstable mind of Vincent Van Gogh combines two of his great loves: first the night, and then sunflowers. He painted both subjects repeatedly in his short life, always with an intensity that demands our attention and makes us curious about his emotional state. In his many letters he shows himself to be an intelligent, spiritual man. And art critic Albert Aurier, after his interview with Vincent, called him “an artist with the brutal hands of a giant, the nerves of an hysterical woman, and the soul of a mystic.” That seems a true and eloquent description of the man and the psyche my painting attempts to depict.” 

–– Jenness Cortez ––