Artists

LOVING VINCENTJOSEPH ROULIN``````Loving Vincent artists often workon a painting for two weeks toproduce just a few seconds offilm footage. Pictured opposite isthe process behind the creationof the character Joseph ‘thepostman’ Roulin, a close friendof Van Gogh, painted in the styleof the artist’s original portrait.``````his Arles bedroom furniture left behind from the shootsit in the hallway, posters of his works cover officedoors. There is a palpable silence, the kind so oftenfound in an art studio when a painter is in full flow, onlyhere, there’s a crowd of them working at once.I interrupt artist Martyna Wolna as she appliesfinishing touches to the opening shot of the film, adusky view with Van Gogh’s characteristic swirls ofpaint cascading across the canvas.Martyna is a transmedia artist and painter, and hasbeen working on Loving Vincent for the last ninemonths whilst also studying for her PhD. As a creativewith her own story to tell, how does she find painting inthe style of another? “Capturing Van Gogh’s style wasnot that hard, if you are a good painter, you feel thelanguage of painting, so you can learn it,” she says.The thing that drew her to the film (aside from theregular painting work) is the cultural shift LovingVincent represents; we have been over-saturated with3D and CGI, and she suspects audiences are yearningfor something more tangible, “nowadays I feel likepeople are over it, and tired by the fact that everythingis done on computers. I think the most interesting thingis that this is manual,” she tells me.Another artist, Monika Marchewka, explains that shejoined the Loving Vincent team three years ago afterseeing the unlikely advertisement for ‘painters needed’in a magazine. She had only planned on staying five``````“CAPTURING VANGOGH’S STYLE WASNOT THAT HARD, IFYOU ARE A GOODPAINTER, YOU FEELTHE LANGUAGE OFPAINTING, AND SOYOU CAN LEARN IT”The POSTMAN18 Van Gogh.indd 22 10/06/2016 15:32