About Geometric Redux Study after Van Gogh’s Starry Night

What I like most about creating geometric reduction exercises is how they push me to study and better understand my favorite artists and their masterpieces. While changing the proportions of the original work, transforming its composition into basic shapes, finding matching lines, simplifying the color palette, and adding new elements, I end up spending hours observing every tiny detail.

Initially, I thought it was almost absurd to reduce V.G.’s dynamic, angst-filled iconic strokes into flat, smooth elements. On the other hand, that might be exactly what makes this reinterpretation of the Dutch master’s work unique and worthwhile.

For this reinterpretation, I wanted to create contrast among the painting’s elements. I “lit” the sky by completing it with an Art Deco pattern of interlocking stylized stars, and I added spirals to link the elements visually.

Fine art print, limited edition 3/20
Sold and shipped by Zeichenfabrik.

About Andre Brik

Andre Brik was born in Curitiba, Brazil in 1972. Architect, illustrator, and art director, he also studied typography and graphic design at the School of Visual Arts and at Parsons School of Design in New York.

In his works, you can find some of the 1920’s Plakatstil graphic style and polish posters with their clean lines and flat contrasting background colors, their visual puns and wit, and subtle irony. There is also nonsense, humor, counterculture, dada, surrealism, and punk rock. The ideas are born from the observation of the elements of everyday objects. Then the artist begins a long process of sketching to deconstruct and recombine shapes, colors, and meanings. Finally, a careful selection of outcoming ideas is chosen to be digitally developed, painted, and finished as a graphic art illustration.