Marleen Vermeulen
“Marleen Vermeulen’s work represents a new kind of modern, mindful, luxury.”
— Sandra Botnen, curator
“I only paint what I have experienced. My paintings are about recreating a particular feeling”
Day 24 introduces Marleen Vermeulen, who paints on the Sunshine coast surrounded by the splendors of nature. Her paintings are essentially landscapes, but feel more modern, with an underlying quiet minimalism than expected of a traditional landscape. For me, her work meets in the middle between abstraction and realism. Standing back from her large-scale works, they offer an incredibly realistic experience, but close up she captures a dynamic play of light that can appear chaotic and emotional, the way I imagine an abstract painter might instinctively compose a canvass.
“I only paint what I have experienced. My paintings are about recreating a particular feeling,” says Vermeulen. She may take photos of her subjects on her phone, but when she paints, her goal is to reproduce a particular moment she enjoyed in nature as opposed to replicate the image.
Vermeulen started out as an abstract painter and graphic designer living in Holland and London. Her decision to move to the Sunshine Coast was made with reluctance, ultimately to serve her family. She thought she would go back to work when her children started school but the kind of design-work she enjoyed was not to be found in a less populated area. It was a long transition in the making. “I was an award-winning designer in London,” she says, “I
thought this place was going to bury alive.” But eventually she realized what she needed to do was embrace her situation and commit to her artwork like never before. “A friend said it was like a cork coming off a champagne bottle,” she says. She started by committing 90 minutes a day to painting. “I had so many reasons not to paint, but once I made that small commitment I began to gain traction,” she says. Now she sees things differently and believes the space around her has helped to create space within her. Before moving she says, “culturally I felt more pressure and expectation, I think having to do with overpopulation at its base.”
Today she describes her painting practice as luxurious, meaning she has gallery representation and sells everything she paints. “Nothing gets stuck,” she says. My personal favorite is the bird’s nest series, of which she estimates having sold fifty. Marleen Vermeulen’s other series include forest-scapes and ocean-scapes, each offering the viewer a very different experiences of nature.
Vermeulen describes her transformation starting with weekly life drawing classes she held in her community. She became interested in the Westcoast theme. Her sketches of bark, sand, water, and moss were free, but her formal painting she described as too constraint. She made small works in the beginning, like tiles, one hundred of them to be assembled as a very large abstract installation for a hotel. She eventually found her way to large canvasses where she felt she could immerse the viewer in the emotion she wanted to convey.
Describing her transformation as an artist, she emphasizes a personal transformation she feels as inseparable from her art. Her pathway forward depends on the receptivity, authenticity and growth of her own heart. Moving closer to nature ultimately supported her spirituality and initiated an unstoppable momentum. It sounds like the idyllic, dream come true situation, but at its core, Vermeulen made some hard and strong decisions. She made life as she knew it work for her, re-shaping her inner life so the various twigs and branches were organized as a whole. These are the observations and experiences she brings to her painting and the kinds of feelings she shares with her audience. Uncomplicated, even sober, but alive with possibility. For me her work represents a new kind of luxury, both modern, mindful.
All work of Marleen Vermeulen available at present, is listed on the website of the Kurbatoff Gallery in Vancouver. Currently she is in progress producing ten new works for an upcoming solo show in June at the Kurbatoff. For More information visit www.marleenart.com
https://www.kurbatoffgallery.com
https://www.facebook.com/marleen.vermeulen.12/
https://www.instagram.com/marleenvermeulen/