Artist paints Van Gogh replicas so small they fit inside a watch | CBC Radio

With a twitch, sneeze or misplaced inhale, the British artist David A. Lindon can lose months of work. 

Lindon creates sculptures and paintings so small they can literally fit in the eye of a needle or the inner workings of a watch. The work is so delicate Lindon does it mainly at night, to avoid the vibrations of passing traffic and in between heartbeats so his hands don’t twitch. 

“I could spend months and months making something and I’m so happy with it, but right at the last minute it can disappear,” he told As It Happens host Nil Köksal.

One of his latest works is a tribute to Vincent Van Gogh, contained inside a watch. Lindon re-created three of Van Gogh’s paintings, each 0.5 by 0.4 mm: Starry Night, Self Portrait and Sunflowers. It took six months to complete.

Take a look at Lindon’s work:

The three paintings each sit on the legs of a tourbillon, a component that helps maintain a watch’s accuracy. The work is currently for sale at Hammond Galleries in Shifnal, England, and is valued at £150,000 ($258,090). 

‘I think it went up my nose’

Lindon trains his body to practice his art. He avoids coffee and tea so he doesn’t stimulate himself, as well as alcohol so as not to lose his concentration.

Before he sits down at the microscope, which he controls with his feet to leave his hands free for the art, Lindon hits the treadmill. 

“I have to go and really build up a sweat in order to, for the rest of the time, concentrate and hunker down and control every emotion, every fibre, every nerve of my body,” he said.

He knows all too well how important this preparation is — because mistakes can, and have, happened. 

Early into his miniatures career, he was working on a tiny spider sculpture, breathed in a little too hard — and it disappeared.

“I think it went up my nose.” 

Another time, after two months spent recreating a tiny version of Pablo Picasso’s Dancing Woman, a twitch of his hands tore the work to pieces. 

“I could have cried,” he said. “I was mortified. I was so upset with myself.” 

But he painstakingly stitched the art back together, making “the world’s smallest jigsaw.” He hopes to unveil it soon.

How Lindon became a microscopic artist

Lindon’s life as a microscopic artist began around 2019, when he saw a television show about artists making miniature art.

“In the middle of the night I woke up [and thought]: I think I can do that. How small can I go? And I thought, I wonder if I can get that into the eye of a needle?” he said.

“My life has never been quite the same.”

The inspiration was well-timed. Lindon had spent several years looking after his mother, who had dementia. Eventually, she had to live in a care home, leaving him wondering what he would do with his time.

In a way, becoming a microscopic artist is a return to Lindon’s roots. Before looking after his mother, Lindon was an engineer working on the small instrumentation inside the cockpits of planes.

Despite the frustration his new line of work can cause, Lindon sees a big upside to making things so small. 

“I love creating something which, if it was full-size, it’s a good piece of art. But I like to shrink it down and put it into the eye of a needle, and it’s just doubly interesting.”