Koen Vermeule. Light Grid

Vernissage Saturday 3 June during Amsterdam Art Weekend
The artist will be present

Artist talk 3 June at 4 pm: Koen Vermeule in conversation with Boris Paval Conen

LIGHT GRID

Last year, Koen Vermeule was asked by film director Boris Paval Conen to advise him in the production of the youth film 'Dojo', which he was working on. Vermeule, an avid judoka, devised the choreography for the judo scenes in the film and trained the actors so that they could master spectacular throws within a few months.

The artist Koen Vermeule is an accurate observer, an observer with a keen eye for people and situations. People, especially in a concentrated pose, as characters in a theatre or on a film set. Vermeule is not so much interested in the action of the actor, but rather the concentration in which the actor seems to shut himself off from the world prior to the performance. It is that moment and that still pose that catches his eye in the wings of a theatre or on a film set, as well as in everyday encounters on the street, where urban scenes are seen through the eyes of the artist as theatre or film images.

The lighting conditions on a stage or film set inspire Vermeule to a great extent. Looking from the dark into the often brightly lit scenes, sharp contrasts arise, with dark horizontal and vertical lines forming special optical frames, a 'light grid' that sharply demarcates the composition of the motif behind it. Sometimes, the motif itself becomes a silhouette against the illuminated background.

From that position, the artist Vermeule recently spent hours on the film set of 'Dojo', awaiting actions in which the Judo instructor Vermeule had to assist.

Characters in concentrated poses, sharp contrasts in light and dark, compositions demarcated with lines, together form a characteristic image of a new series of paintings and gouaches in the exhibition Light Grid.