TIM VERMEULEN
Artist Statement
My new paintings are based on the alphabet portion of the earliest surviving example of The New England Primer from 1727. This text was used by the Puritans to instruct their children. For each letter of the alphabet, little poems were developed to aid in memorization. Having grown up in a rather strict Calvinist home as the son of an undertaker, I was captivated by the text’s repeated use of themes of sin, guilt, death, and human depravity.
This series of paintings takes the Primer alphabet as a springboard for investigating a contemporary world of contradictions, polarities, and paradox. I use the works to attempt to articulate in visual form, through symbolic and allegorical images, a chaotic web of emotions and ideas that is at once deeply personal and about our universal condition. My work is part of a process of wrestling for self-discovery through autobiographical narratives, in many cases involving self-portraiture.
The novelist Orhan Pamuk describes the writing process by referring to a Turkish expression “to dig a well with a needle.” For me, painting is a similar process that involves patiently picking away at layers that mask the true self and about discovering the world that makes the self what it is. This approach is much like 15th century Northern European painting, which heavily influences the technique and subject matter of my work. I am particularly drawn to the saturated symbolism, quirky perspective and layered surfaces of artists like Roger Campin and Jan VanEyck. There is a peculiar way in which the meaning of this work is married to the technique. One accesses the meaning of these paintings through the process of their creation as well as through the subject matter. The obsessive character of the technique of many Flemish artists seeks the same home of conviction and insight that I look for in my work. This is a particularly Northern form of expressionism that strains for release not in big brushes and wild gestures but in a slow, painstaking process.
This series of paintings takes the Primer alphabet as a springboard for investigating a contemporary world of contradictions, polarities, and paradox. I use the works to attempt to articulate in visual form, through symbolic and allegorical images, a chaotic web of emotions and ideas that is at once deeply personal and about our universal condition. My work is part of a process of wrestling for self-discovery through autobiographical narratives, in many cases involving self-portraiture.
The novelist Orhan Pamuk describes the writing process by referring to a Turkish expression “to dig a well with a needle.” For me, painting is a similar process that involves patiently picking away at layers that mask the true self and about discovering the world that makes the self what it is. This approach is much like 15th century Northern European painting, which heavily influences the technique and subject matter of my work. I am particularly drawn to the saturated symbolism, quirky perspective and layered surfaces of artists like Roger Campin and Jan VanEyck. There is a peculiar way in which the meaning of this work is married to the technique. One accesses the meaning of these paintings through the process of their creation as well as through the subject matter. The obsessive character of the technique of many Flemish artists seeks the same home of conviction and insight that I look for in my work. This is a particularly Northern form of expressionism that strains for release not in big brushes and wild gestures but in a slow, painstaking process.
