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# Conjuring Up van Gogh's "Starry Night" in a Bowl of Water
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/conjuring-up-van-goghs-starry-night-in-a-bowl-of-water/
- Published: 2016-06-17T14:20:50.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:29:14.000Z
- Description: Recreating Vincent van Gogh paintings in unexpected mediums has become something of a trend in recent years.
- Author: Carey Dunne
- Tags: Art, Review, Vincent van Gogh, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 07:17 (2016, 2017, part 1)

![B7EVx5J - Imgur](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2016/06/b7evx5j-imgur.gif)

Garip Ay, clip from “Van Gogh on Dark Water Animation” (2016) (all GIFs by the author for Hyperallergic)

Recreating [Vincent van Gogh paintings in unexpected mediums](https://hyperallergic.com/gogh-big-or-gogh-home-a-definitive-ranking-of-van-gogh-art-tributes/) has become something of a trend in recent years: We’ve seen everything from [“Starry Night” drawn with bacteria in a petri dish](http://hyperallergic.com/240951/art-grown-in-a-petri-dish/) to [“Olive Trees” rendered as crop art](http://hyperallergic.com/240864/holy-crop-a-van-gogh-painting-recreated-in-a-field/). The latest and most dazzling addition to the van Gogh tribute movement comes from Turkish artist [Garip Ay](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dKy7HNU4vk&ref=hyperallergic.com), who paints a rendition of “Starry Night” using [ebru](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebru?ref=hyperallergic.com), or paper marbling, in a bowl of water.

Ebru, a decorative paper art, hails from East and Central Asia in the 10th and 16th centuries, respectively. The technique involves sprinkling and brushing pigments onto the surface of oily water in a pan, then laying paper atop the water, effectively dyeing the paper with tendrils of color. Ay is classically trained in the art form, and his loose, paisley-like patterns beautifully mimic the Dutch post-Impressionist’s celestial swirls. His process is animated in the most mesmerizing video the van Gogh fanboy cult has yet produced. To reveal the extent of his ebru chops, Ay also creates a striking marbled portrait of van Gogh himself.

![mlTJu6s - Imgur](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2016/06/mltju6s-imgur.gif)

Garip Ay, clip from “Van Gogh on Dark Water Animation” (2016)

![ZLjIxo3 - Imgur](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2016/06/zljixo3-imgur.gif)

Garip Ay, clip from “Van Gogh on Dark Water Animation” (2016)