Year Produced: 2026

Size: 8.5” by 11”

Medium: Watercolor & Wax Pen 

WOKE UP WITH THE TELEVISION OFF - A Collection of Ian Van D’s Artwork

When I sleep, recurring characters appear in the shadows. I see them with long legs, short arms, distorted torsos, and faceless heads, sometimes with a mouth. When I spot them, I can’t move, and neither can they; they simply watch me until I turn on the light and they disappear. These figures hugely inspire my paintings. I draw them intuitively - they come to me as I begin to scribble, and I quickly start to develop their shapes. I work out the figures with a thick layer of greasy dark wax, then add details with needle tools of various sizes. I paint the backgrounds separately, approaching each one as an abstract exercise. I create fields of color that melt, drip, and smear. Eventually, I end up with a stack of paintings and a stack of scratchy drawings, which I pair with the appropriate backgrounds, and then glue together. Through this process, I create unapologetically scary paintings. Each one conveys pain, anxiety, dream-like disorientation, and the strange distance between our minds and our bodies. Together, the paintings invite the viewer into a hilariously terrifying representation of what it feels like to be uncomfortable while awake and scared while asleep.