The Works of Van Gogh.  Penn, C.  (2008 - ?) (Fig. 66). The Works of Van Gogh.   Unique Altered Book. (Work in  Progress). Collage, sewing, drawing, painting.  35cm x 27cm x 4.5cm. Collection: Cheryl Penn

I had been given a book on van Gogh many years ago by a good friend, Paul,  who lectured psychology at a university at the time.  We lost contact, but the troubled nature of van Gogh reminded me very much of Paul.  The nature of psychology is to add, or subtract, from presented scenarios in order to arrive at some sort of conclusion/remedy/treatment.  Whatever the treatment involved, I remember Paul telling me about unpacking minds in order to sort out problems.  In his opinion however, very few psychologists  did a successful job of re-packing the mind and that the end state of a lot of patients was worse than before they embarked on therapy.

I set about to ‘lighten the load’ of van Gogh’s images, not make them better, I don’t believe anyone could do that,  just to add a little or subtract a little in order to add a touch of humor to his work.  I did this mainly through collage.  By staying in the original book format, the works became secret little tweaks to the work of the great master; it became about re-LOOKING at the works.  The tweaks are sometimes so small as to be indiscernible, whilst sometimes they border on the anarchic.   It was about re-writing (re-visualizing) the word/k already written.  This work is unfinished.  It will take years to complete.

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