Opening of the exhibition of Leon Vermeulen
@Alliance Française
6pm / 18h / Free Entrance
The exhibition is about painting and it is about the body. The body as attraction and the body as failure. Painting as attraction and failure. It is painting what to say, how to say it or whether to say anything at all. It is about posing and exposing.
The body as theatre and painting as theatre – about being in the body and being in the painting. To turn awareness and experience into paint, creating a silent language. It is about speechlessness and stillness, about choosing painting. Painting as sanctuary.
I paint the same image, the male figure, over and over. It is the body I know and deal with. Searching for an image that can depict this not knowing how to be. Not painting what the figure means, but what it means to paint the figure.
In the theatre of model posing and artist drawing, something happens. This consciousness of being in a pose becomes more acute than the unconscious posing of ordinary life.
I like the silence and slowness of painting. An ancient technology. The canvas is where experience becomes condensed, more tangible and less chaotic. Things become paint. I can grasp this. Paint is the medium I know and use to articulate something that approaches meaning. This work is layered with pattern, shape and text to try and create a visual counterpoint. Trying to turn flesh into paint and paint into flesh.
The body as theatre and painting as theatre – about being in the body and being in the painting. To turn awareness and experience into paint, creating a silent language. It is about speechlessness and stillness, about choosing painting. Painting as sanctuary.
I paint the same image, the male figure, over and over. It is the body I know and deal with. Searching for an image that can depict this not knowing how to be. Not painting what the figure means, but what it means to paint the figure.
In the theatre of model posing and artist drawing, something happens. This consciousness of being in a pose becomes more acute than the unconscious posing of ordinary life.
I like the silence and slowness of painting. An ancient technology. The canvas is where experience becomes condensed, more tangible and less chaotic. Things become paint. I can grasp this. Paint is the medium I know and use to articulate something that approaches meaning. This work is layered with pattern, shape and text to try and create a visual counterpoint. Trying to turn flesh into paint and paint into flesh.
