In Mine (midnight), Mine (morning) Alex Chitty transforms imagery from one of the world’s most known paintings, Vincent van Gogh’s Fifteen Sunflowers (1888), into something novel and ethereal. To begin, the artist placed an unstretched vintage “crewel embroidery” of the painting (sourced from eBay) over an inked monotype plate. Running it through the press over many experimentations led to a final impression, the image shedding its former identity as either a painting or an embroidery.

Van Gogh’s signature florals are memento mori, meditations on the passage of time. A single vase of Fifteen Sunflowers depicts flowers at different stages in their lifespan. In her prints, Chitty offers a further meditation on time: “One represents the image as it would look in the morning, and the other represents the image as it might appear at night.”

Chitty recontextualizes familiar objects to encourage deeper, more conscious ways of seeing. Now occupying a new realm of value–no longer painting, no longer embroidery–Mine (midnight) ,Mine (morning) is a printed diptych. When collected one can be kept and one gifted, or sent to a distant geographic location. The pair can also be hung side by side on east and west facing walls to complement the movement of sun across the sky. Reflecting on the awesome nature of time over distance, Chitty has observed of her own family (some of whom live in England), “My midnight is my mother’s morning.” Our coexistence with others is often physically apart but inexorably synchronous. For the artist, placement of the two prints, whether together or separate, is an expression of such ineffable connection.

The prints’ original matrix is a crewel embroidery, woven from a template produced by Paragon Needlecraft. Popularized in the 1940s, particularly as a creative outlet for middle class women, such embroideries are now found in thrift shops and eBay. As such, Chitty’s rendition moves along axes of skill, medium, and authorship—from iconic male painter to anonymous embroiderer, and finally to artist and publisher.