Sabine Vermeulen

The making of these paintings can be seen as some kind of ritual that helps me to archive the information that I receive daily. A way of deforming the images and telling another story as a false truth. Looking for a composition and a “clair obscur” that makes the newborn image  more abstract but still recognizable. It remains a figure when you look at the  whole picture but every detail becomes a world on his own, created by coincidence.

I find the human body extremely fascinating because of its expression and most  certainly its “perishableness”. To capture the constantly changing and aging body, as well as the light that falls on it for a moment, becomes the purpose. It offers a kind of comfort as if I am able to stop time. The position of a person tells a story and makes it easy to manipulate an image to a different interpretation.

Human beings can move me in to both directions, admiration or disgust. They are egocentric and although rather helpless, they rule over other creatures, often without mercy. Sometimes cruel to each other when they do not agree. Our emotions make us vulnerable and are unable to hide, even when we behave the opposite of how we feel inside. This is the reason why I prefer to make portraits of people I do not know. It is the look on the face that allows me to make up a story.

I want to obtain the effect of a realistic painting of which you will find that the way it is painted is more interesting than the image itself and at the same time makes you wonder what it is all about. The viewer must be challenged to make  his or her own interpretation. Therefore I choose to give each work a title that is not explicit. The title is my own conclusion about it as soon as the work is finished.

Maybe we love fiction so much because we fear the truth. Our story is not never ending as we have to live with death as the final part. So we search for something bigger and everlasting in legends, rituals and religion. Unfortunately this can lead to dispute and cruelty. As religion, art and fantasy can be considered as useless, it could serve to make us forget that we ourselves are not important at all. My urge to create this parallel world can be a way to escape from the inevitable. At least this is what I presume.