Pieter Vermeersch

Pieter Vermeersch’s work though primarily consisting of painting, also incorporates photography, video and projections. The engagement with architectural context is another key part of the work. Even though the imagery is often purely abstract, it is an abstraction of something real and physical. In a sense, light, colour, paint and space are not just the mediums of the work; they are the subjects as well.

It’s a painterly practice rooted in making visible what a picture actually is. It’s a process of constant accumulation, a kind of narrative, where each element and each work of his practice refers directly to another in a closely bound way. For instance, a painting might be of a photograph of a previous painting, though in this instance the photograph is inverted or is in negative form. Frequently Vermeersch submerges the spatial and physical context through direct application of paint to architectural surfaces. These sometimes-vast ‘wall paintings’ are often single colours, shifting in an imperceptible gradient from 0% of the colour, i.e. white, through to 100%.

At times it is quite a technical, meticulous practice, involving considerably high levels of production. You can sense this about the work – you can feel the after burn of expenditure of effort similar to that particular feeling experienced when encountering a Photorealist painting. Yet possibly all this makes Vermeersch’s work sound dry and abstruse while in fact it can be quite ethereal. Certainly it can be very beautiful, intense, and joyous even. And while such language might invoke notions of the sublime, Vermeersch is very much interested in locating his work in reality – the specific reality and life of images.

For his first solo exhibition at Carl Freedman Gallery, Vermeersch will combine wall paintings, paintings on canvas, and a photograph. Space, architecture and image will be merged and cut together. Historical elements of work will be refigured and presented equally as part of the new total work.

Pieter Vermeersch (b. 1973, Kortrijk, Belgium) studied at the Higher Institute for Fine Arts, Antwerp and the Higher Institute for Visual Arts (option painting), Sint-Lucas, Ghent, Belgium. He currently lives and works in Brussels, Belgium. Recent solo exhibitions include White Box, New York, 2009, Pieter Vermeersch/Olivier Mosset, Project Space, Les Filles du Calvaires, Brussels 2009, and CCNOA, Brussels 2008. Recent Group shows include Brussels Biennial 2008 and Prix de la Jeune Peinture Belge, BOZAR, Brussels 2007.