Recreating Van Gogh's dark infinity

“The sunflower is mine, in a way.” 

- Vincent Van Gogh

He doesn't have a name yet. But when he says he never thought the sun was happy, his interest in the mind of the master painter is his point of departure from the work in the direction of his interpretation of pointillism by Paul Signec and Van Gogh.

"Why not all it infinity?" I say. "It is the apt title because it is the dark infinity that makes the sunflower so tragically beautiful and it is your sunflower as Gogh said that the sunflower is mine, in a way."

"That's what it will be called then," Rahul Mishra says.

Over the phone, he says he doesn't own any Van Gogh paintings yet but then with his new collection that he is about to showcase in the next 10 days in Paris, he has paid a tribute to the sunflower pitched against the dark infinity by the artist. He calls his artisans as his 200 Van Goghs. There is the dark infinity beyond the sunflowers. There’s everything that makes a garment a canvas.

That’s where his next collection is headed - in a timeless zone of sunflowers and blue horizons of master painters of pointillism. He wants each piece to be a canvas and thread and needle to do what brush strokes did many years ago on canvas. It is not easy. The brilliance of madness in explosion of colours and layers is what he sought. Already he had crafted a rainforest for his collection showcased in Paris last year.

On the invitation cards, the designer has called his collection Infinity and used a quote by the master painter. That is the best way to explain the burst of colours, the layered embroidery and the dark Infinity that struck a claim to the sunflower, the landscape and everything else with a needle and thread. Infinity implies the infinite ways of art and craft.

It symbolises the obsessive quest for that which can never be found. At the same time, the concept of infinity is what fascinates us. What lies beyond is what makes us the seekers. Mishra is a seeker. He is a lover. He is a painter and an artist.

The designer, who believes in slow fashion, says last year it was Henri Rousseau's rainforest paintings that fired his imagination but he had mastered the way of letting the clothes not be overwhelmed by trees and birds.

There was a subtle message - endangered rain forests. He isn't an activist but fashion must be relevant and must use the context of the times we live in. Now, as he crafts yet another collection, the messages are sewn in and embroidered. He is making a case for darkness. He is making a case for sunflowers that emerge out of the dark infinity. He is making a case for happiness and for that eternal quest for that which cannot be found.

Rahul Mishra, the International Woolmark International Prize winner of 2014 and one of the only two Indian designer to hold on to the Paris Runway for six seasons where he showcases with the likes of John Galliano and Hermes, says he doesn’t own any painting by Van Gogh yet but in his tribute to the artist whose sunflowers were painted with so many layers that in trying to locate the infinity, he mixed techniques of embroidery for his next collection to be shown in Paris in March at the mecca of all fashion weeks.

Probably, he would call it “infinity” which is what lies so far away like love that in order to reach it, one has to keep pushing, he says.

In October last year when he was in Paris for his show, it was the decade-old Nuit Blanche, a free dusk 'til dawn carnival of arts and culture inspired by St Petersburg's "White Nights" where all artworks are on display all night and after he had finished with his show on October 1, 2016, he had been tired.

But when he got out at midnight, he felt a surge that happens only when one is in love. His last collection was titled "It felt Love" and Suzy Menkes had reviewed it and said India should regard him as a national treasure.

It was midnight and they had decided to walk the streets of Paris. It was the night of art. He had just finished his show at the Paris Fashion week. They ended up at Pompei Do and he says it was serendipity when he stepped into the building where there was an exhibition of paintings from different era and according to the designer, it was like arriving in different time zones as you could travel through pairings.

That’s when he saw the sunflowers by Van Gogh. As the artist famously said once “the sunflower is mine, in a way” and he was taken aback with the psychedelic nature of the work, the vibrancy of colours and the infinite layers.

“It looked like paint was sculpted over canvas. These were thick brush strokes. I took hundreds of pictures and it was like a treasure like I had a whole bunch of diamonds laid out in front of me. When you go to museums, there are protocols. Here, you could view the paintings from close quarters,” he says.

He returned at 4am. He had already been inspired by Van Gogh and Paul Signec whose paintings he would then recreate on his garments. But it wasn’t easy to create that layering. He would spend months honing the embroidery and therefore, he calls his artisans 200 Van Goghs. The collection has mixed canvases and techniques to create landscapes and layering.

“Inspiration is like a dream. It’s like falling in love. The engagement happens and it it was like a chain reaction,” he says.

It as pointillism that made him wonder if he could recreate these canvases on garments. As the painter has his paint and brushes, the designer has his thread and needles. He returned and researched on impressionistic pointillism. He wanted to understand the mind of the artist.

“I could actually make new artwork,” he says. “Sunflowers have been painted by many. But it Van Gogh who touched my heart. It was his utmost simplicity and the way the layering was done. Even sunflowers don’t have that kind of softness. An artist is like God. He pushes himself beyond imagination.

In 1988, Yves Saint Laurent had painted Van Gogh’s sunflowers on his jacket and his long-time partner and companion Pierre Berge had said to TIME that they agreed fashion is not an art but fashion needs art to exist. Mishra says he isn’t Van Gogh. There would only be one Van Gogh but it is a tribute to the master painter whose colours inspire awe.

“He knew the science of it. He could see the magnetic fields before us. It was a challenge but I decided I couldn’t do the infinite kind of layering as in CMYK mode, the paintings would have millions of colours. But I could try with what I had,” he says.

The designer, one of the most successful ones out of India, has always paid tribute to his artisans and says they became the artist. It took them a day to make one sunflower but on the garment, they look like a painting almost. He has used the three-dimensional technique in embroidery to reconjure the depth in these paintings. So there are velvetish flowers where he has used zardozi technique with looping and then combed it. There are French knots at the edges.

“When you see the dark background in the paitnings, it looks like dark infinity,” he says. “That’s what amazes me. I could feel the breeze in Paul Signac’s landscapes."

On a jacket, there is the multi-coloured sun by Van Gogh and a landscape by Paul Signac. It is an ode to Pointillism. There is a boat and blue horizon. Signac, a master of horizons, was a pioneer of the impressionistic pointillism movement in art.

Gogh, who has been said to be bipolar, was a genius whose paintings echoed his state of mind, he says.

The mystery was what fascinated him.

“It’s happiness because you are awe-struck. You want to cry. I don’t want the sun to look happy. It has to be a little sad like in Van Gogh and I have taken a little liberty as my medium is different and have mixed works of art from that era,” he says.

“I am a deeply unsatisfied designer. I want to return to these artworks again to try one more time. This kind of artwork is not easy to achieve and can only be done with hand.

“I want to leave the viewers with certain questions. They need to feel responsible. This chaos of colour and careless happiness and randomness of arrangement should make them feel more about handwork,” he says.

In the end, with the ecstatic reproduction of these layered paintings in thread and needle, the designer wants artisans to be treated like artists. He wants to break the barriers of classical and non-classical art forms.

“It should make them sad as to why they never thought this could be possible with the kind of embroidery we have in India,” he says. “It is all about making it mine. Even the sunflowers."

And even the sadness and the ecstasy. What we wear is a projection and the art of storytelling revels in conflicts of emotions. In the layers of the embroidery where a black gown has red bursts of colours that look like the skies have gone mad and the impossibility is just a state of mind to be set aside for imagination's leap of faith, you know the vision of the painters of pointillism have many otter mediums than just the canvas.

It is about how you see and interpret. The designer's USP is in interpretation. He has taken a risk. But only out of respect. Not to imitate or to compete. In that humility, the sunflowers dance on the hem and landscapes come alive on a jacket.