Art is a Cold Place
Oil on Canvas,
US$
8,262
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Art is a Cold Place
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Details
Oil on Canvas
W: 2300mm x H: 1400mm
W: 91" x H: 55"
This work is
framed (but can be supplied either framed or unframed)
Price
US$ 8,262
Scale
Reference
Knysna Fine Art
About "Art is a Cold Place"
Face to face, Leon Vermeulen’s pictures certainly tax the viewer. His imagery is not easy, but it won’t let you go. It is frequently unsettling, but - and this is important - it often turns out to be the most beautiful of visual narratives. Even in relatively straightforward painterly jobs (a craft he is cunningly skilled in, whether watercolour on paper or, lately, oil on linen) such as making portraits, it is evident that there is a hefty story behind what you see in front of you.
Sometimes he leaves no title to what you face in the picture; other times he jacks up the tension with a wayward, poetic phrase. Many times the picture itself must make space for text - as if the illustrated story spills over in words. And yet, paradoxically, he guards against the verbal: “my paintings also concern the impossibility of words”.
All this, we mesmerised viewers, lap up. Captivated, we tap into that childlike, Jungian world where story-telling holds the real world at bay, and, for that moment, in fictitious balance.
Vermeulen occupies a special place in South African art. Call it an individual occupation, a high-toned creativity that shifts and sieves a wide ranging field of interest - one that ranges from politics to pleasure, with the medium under his hands leading the way. He speaks about the “visualisation of the unsayable”.
That he is not lauded more, has everything to do with the privacy of his artistic occupation. Few contemporary artists these days dare to shun the fads and fame that the conventions of the ‘art world’ put out as lure. Vermeulen is one. Art-making is what his life is about, however clichéd such a description. A passion for discovery.
Yet, no artist stands alone. Stories need to be told to someone, have an audience.
The title of the new exhibition has a beautiful jenzeits quality to it. The Jungian connection, the artist says, is there. But, typical Vermeulen, ‘The Other Shore’ is grounded in an immediate personal reality before it takes off on its metaphorical dream trip of the show.
“I walked along the beach one day, and thought about painting an ice berg.”
Beyond that vision - which is one of discovery (think literally: explorers of extreme places, such as Antarctica; think figuratively: poets and painters charged by passionate creativity) - lies the other shore, of course. It is in this in-between where Vermeulen, the exploring artist, operates. A journey, no less, of which this new show is the documentation.
In the early Sixties, the description ‘deep image’ was used in American poetry. It suggested strong images, deeply resonant and lyrical, toying with symbols, but urging the reader to construct the narrative.
When we’re puzzled by Leon Vermeulen’s pictures, and yet cannot escape the beauty of the stories, it’s his ‘deep images’ that compel us on the journey of discovery, and the visual tales he tells.
Melvyn Minnaar
January 2012
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View all 1 works by Leon Vermeulen
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