In the manner of Vincent van Gogh
Dutch, 1853–1890
Bedroom in a Shared Flat, 2026
Oil on canvas
90 × 72 cm
Never painted.
Commissioned for the collection, 2026.
PAB 2026.9.2
A mattress on the floor under a rumpled blue duvet, a laptop on a milk crate, fairy lights along the ceiling and a bicycle hung on the wall because there is nowhere else to put it. The floor tilts like the deck of a boat. Van Gogh painted *The Bedroom* in Arles three times to show his brother how restful it was. The perspective disagreed with him then. It still does.
The brief
A small bedroom with a mattress on the floor, a laptop on a crate, a string of fairy lights, a bicycle against the wall, tilted perspective. Post-Impressionist oil painting, thick directional impasto strokes that swirl and vibrate, cobalt and chrome yellow in violent harmony, outlined forms, exaggerated perspective, energetic sky and ground, emotional intensity in ordinary subjects, heavy paint texture casting its own shadows. Museum photograph of the oil painting, even gallery lighting revealing impasto, no frame, no text, no wall, no floor, cropped to the canvas edge.
Written to the house rules. The painter's name does not appear.
Take it home
The painting on this room's wall, at its own proportions, nothing written on it.
