Tim Vermeulen, October 2020
The October Art Exhibition, “Stars and Bars: A Survey of Four Artists with Ties to Washington DC” featuring John Figura, William Hill, Stephen Lewis, Tim Vermeulen opens on October 3, 5-7 PM.
Green Kill 2020 October Art Exhibition, “Stars and Bars: A Survey of Four Artists with Ties to Washington DC” featuring John Figura, William Hill, Stephen Lewis,and Tim Vermeulen will be on display from Saturday October 3 to Saturday, October 26, 2020 with an opening party on Saturday, October 3, 2020 from 5-7 PM.
New Normal health concerns are a primary. The customary Green Kill opening of beverages with finger foods will be covered for protection. If you wish to come on opening day, please understand that 10 people are permitted in the gallery at one time, that all attendees must were face masks, and we will us a “Non-Contact Infrared Digital Thermometer” and “Pulse Oximeter Blood Oxygen Level Monitor” for screening. There were be outside seating for your convenience. Green Kill is equipped with a heat pump so the air is constantly refreshed and the space is, as always, sanitized.
Tim Vermeulen
Tim Vermeulen, “Meditation IV,” 8.5 X 11.5 ft.
Tim Vermeulen was born in Paterson, NJ. The son of a funeral director, he was raised in a rigidly Calvinist household. He is understandably plagued with thoughts of guilt and damnation. He received a B.A. from Calvin College and an M.F.A. in Painting and Drawing from The University of Illinois Champaign/Urbana. Tim was an art professor for 17 years, first at Trinity Christian College in Palos Heights, IL, and then at Mount Saint Mary’s University in Emmitsburg, MD. He is currently a full-time painter living in Maryland and he is represented by Packer Schopf Gallery. Recent solo exhibitions include George Billis Gallery, New York, NY (2019, 2016), Adventureland, Chicago, IL (2018) Mount Saint Mary’s University, Emmitsburg, MD (2013), Mt. Comfort Gallery, Indianapolis, IN (2011), Packer Schopf Gallery, Chicago, IL (2010).
My paintings are attempts to articulate in visual form, through symbolic and allegorical stories, a chaotic web of emotions and ideas that is at once deeply personal and about our universal condition. My work is part of a process of wrestling for self-discovery through autobiographical narratives, in many cases involving self-portraiture. Often the narratives are based on established stories or series from literary sources (e.g., Dante’s Inferno, Homer’s Odyssey, the Seven Deadly Sins). I interpret the sources in a way that allows me to refer to issues such as personal anxiety about the delicate nature of the body, the battle between the true self and the false self, feelings about my strict Calvinist upbringing, and/or the elusive task of personality integration. A common thread that carries through much of my work is a presentation of a world of contradictions, polarities, and paradox.
15th century Northern European painting heavily influences the technique and subject matter of my work. I am particularly drawn to the saturated symbolism, quirky perspective and layered surfaces of artists like Roger Campin and Hugo Van der Goes. There is a peculiar way in which the meaning of this work is married to the technique. One accesses the meaning of these paintings through the process of their creation as well as through the subject matter. The obsessive character of the technique of many Flemish artists seeks the same home of conviction and insight that I look for in my work. This is a particularly Northern form of expressionism that seeks release not in big brushes and wild gestures but in a slow, painstaking process.
Tim Vermeulen Exhibition
“Stars and Bars: A Survey of Four Artists with Ties to Washington DC”
Washington, D.C. in many ways is a city without an identity. A large portion of its population is transient, moving in and out with the tide of presidential cycles and affecting the cultural tenor of the city. To quote John F. Kennedy, “…it is a city of southern efficiency and Northern charm.” Because of its transient population and ever-changing political climate, as Kennedy points out, the city lacks the identity of either a northern or southern city and is driven by shifting philosophies. The main industry in Washington is that of ideas.
Historically, the city’s most promising art movement was the “Washington Color School” which boasted members such as Kenneth Noland, Gene Davis, Sam Gilliam, Leon Berkowitz, and Tom Downing, and was championed by non-objective backers of “flat” painting such as Clement Greenburg. The “Color Field” movement differed from the other flat art movement, abstract expressionism, in that it was more about optics and less about mark making. Many of the paintings were stained onto raw canvas using the newly developed “magna” paint, which effectively dissolved the brush stroke entirely. These painters developed an almost atmospheric perspective more related to landscape painting than the flat quality of the paintings’ surface would belie.
If the New York School responded to the bustle of the city and its energy for inspiration, surely the painters in Washington responded more to a constant march of ideas, focusing the work on an inward dialog forced upon them from an outside maelstrom of political ideologies.
The artists in this show continue in that tradition of philosophical yearning, with the lines erased over time between abstraction and narration, leaving only a desire to find meaning, whether through narrative means or abstract. How else do we explain what we’ve become?