Pieter Vermeersch
10 May - 30 Jun 2007
PIETER VERMEERSCH
The work of Pieter Vermeersch (Kortrijk, 1973) is a continuous reflection on the process of painting. The use of color, a central element in his work, is related to a spatial consciousness, the architectural information is incorporated in the act of painting. His work is an ongoing exploration on concepts as abstract versus representative, autonomous versus heteronomous, introspective versus narrative, inside versus outside.
The second solo exhibition of Pieter Vermeersch in ProjecteSD is constructed in three parts: two series of medium format oil paintings and one wall painting developed specifically for the gallery space. All works are different approaches on the artist ́s research on color gradations: paintings with an extremely precise, almost scientific gradual "shifting" of color. According to Vermeersch, gradations function as transitional images.
The new series of oil paintings presented, are to Vermeersch painterly traces of photographic images. Every canvas is in stage of development to the other, constructed as a sequence. They result from photographs that documented Vermeersch ́s previous piece Untitled (2006), presented in the Muhka (museum of Contemporary Art in Antwerp). The installation consisted of a mural gradation painting on the wall of a circular room and a double mirrored panel installed in the centre of the room that rotated on its axis. The color, light and the architectural elements interacting in the room reflected on the mirror. The photographic series captured the interaction of these three elements, essential elements in Vermeersch ́s work. The canvases produced after this documentation function as synthetic elements, even as memories of a previous installation that are relocated, with a physical position, as objects again. They are also meant to become a new image, a kind of photo-representation that can neither be abstract nor representative, it ́s both at the same time.
The wall painting presented, a gradation from white to dark grey, is a painting created for the three-dimensional structure of the gallery space. Vermeersch has chosen the area of the room that is less neutral, more complicated in terms of architecture, the area that conveys a more drastic image of reality. Here again, there is an element of temporality, the ongoing variation of color intensity annihilates all sense of stabilization and deprives the viewer of any specific point to focus on.
In an interview with Dieter Roelstraete Vermeersch said, refering to his site-specific mural works and his paintings on canvas: “ there is an interesting interaction that cancels, in my view, the artificial distinction between two-dimensional and three-dimensional way of painting. The three dimensional, “sculptural” work would not exist without the impulses I receive from my enquiry into painting on the traditional canvas. And likewise, my current exploration of the possibilities of “traditional painting” is unthinkable without the incentives I got from working in three dimensions and from literally feeling the edges of the pictorial surface”.
In an essay on Vermeersch ́s work, Hilde van Gelder says: “... color, light, space, matter and time are so fondational for our reality that, in their artistic presentation as such, they become fully representational and meaningful. Abstract and representative at the same time. This is exactly what Pieter Vermeersch does. The realism of his paintings is so absolutely, radically and literally dazzling that one almost comes to the point of simply forgetting that it is there”.
The works of Pieter Vermeersch have been shown at the Contemporary Art Museum in Ghent, S.M.A.K, Programa Art Center in Mexico City, CC Strombeek, Strombeek-Bever (Belgium), and the MUHKA in Antwerp, to mention a few. Vermeersch is one of the selected artists to the Prix de Jeune Peinture Belge 2007 which will be presented at the Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels next June. He lives and works in Brussels.
Hilde van Gelder is professor of modern and contemporary art history and director of the Lieven Gevaert Centre for Photography and Visual studies at the University of Leuven (Belgium).
Dieter Roelstraete is editor in chief of the magazine AS and curator of the MUHKA (Museum of Contemporary Art in Antwerp, Belgium).
The work of Pieter Vermeersch (Kortrijk, 1973) is a continuous reflection on the process of painting. The use of color, a central element in his work, is related to a spatial consciousness, the architectural information is incorporated in the act of painting. His work is an ongoing exploration on concepts as abstract versus representative, autonomous versus heteronomous, introspective versus narrative, inside versus outside.
The second solo exhibition of Pieter Vermeersch in ProjecteSD is constructed in three parts: two series of medium format oil paintings and one wall painting developed specifically for the gallery space. All works are different approaches on the artist ́s research on color gradations: paintings with an extremely precise, almost scientific gradual "shifting" of color. According to Vermeersch, gradations function as transitional images.
The new series of oil paintings presented, are to Vermeersch painterly traces of photographic images. Every canvas is in stage of development to the other, constructed as a sequence. They result from photographs that documented Vermeersch ́s previous piece Untitled (2006), presented in the Muhka (museum of Contemporary Art in Antwerp). The installation consisted of a mural gradation painting on the wall of a circular room and a double mirrored panel installed in the centre of the room that rotated on its axis. The color, light and the architectural elements interacting in the room reflected on the mirror. The photographic series captured the interaction of these three elements, essential elements in Vermeersch ́s work. The canvases produced after this documentation function as synthetic elements, even as memories of a previous installation that are relocated, with a physical position, as objects again. They are also meant to become a new image, a kind of photo-representation that can neither be abstract nor representative, it ́s both at the same time.
The wall painting presented, a gradation from white to dark grey, is a painting created for the three-dimensional structure of the gallery space. Vermeersch has chosen the area of the room that is less neutral, more complicated in terms of architecture, the area that conveys a more drastic image of reality. Here again, there is an element of temporality, the ongoing variation of color intensity annihilates all sense of stabilization and deprives the viewer of any specific point to focus on.
In an interview with Dieter Roelstraete Vermeersch said, refering to his site-specific mural works and his paintings on canvas: “ there is an interesting interaction that cancels, in my view, the artificial distinction between two-dimensional and three-dimensional way of painting. The three dimensional, “sculptural” work would not exist without the impulses I receive from my enquiry into painting on the traditional canvas. And likewise, my current exploration of the possibilities of “traditional painting” is unthinkable without the incentives I got from working in three dimensions and from literally feeling the edges of the pictorial surface”.
In an essay on Vermeersch ́s work, Hilde van Gelder says: “... color, light, space, matter and time are so fondational for our reality that, in their artistic presentation as such, they become fully representational and meaningful. Abstract and representative at the same time. This is exactly what Pieter Vermeersch does. The realism of his paintings is so absolutely, radically and literally dazzling that one almost comes to the point of simply forgetting that it is there”.
The works of Pieter Vermeersch have been shown at the Contemporary Art Museum in Ghent, S.M.A.K, Programa Art Center in Mexico City, CC Strombeek, Strombeek-Bever (Belgium), and the MUHKA in Antwerp, to mention a few. Vermeersch is one of the selected artists to the Prix de Jeune Peinture Belge 2007 which will be presented at the Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels next June. He lives and works in Brussels.
Hilde van Gelder is professor of modern and contemporary art history and director of the Lieven Gevaert Centre for Photography and Visual studies at the University of Leuven (Belgium).
Dieter Roelstraete is editor in chief of the magazine AS and curator of the MUHKA (Museum of Contemporary Art in Antwerp, Belgium).