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Guido Vermeulen's mail art envelopes are like worlds into themselves and at the same time they are part of the much larger whole.

(a comment by NANCY BELL SCOTT, USA, on the IUOMA network)

Guido's paintings are like finding images in the clouds
(a comment by Kathleen D. Johnson, USA, on IUOMA)

Guido does not paint monsters but spirits and ghosts, full of love, tenderness and compassion
(LIZA LEYLA during a conversation, Belgium)

His ability to express emotions through painting is a beautiful gift. Allowing oneself to feel sadness is the most direct route through grief. His paintings feel peaceful and kind.

(STEPHEN WALKER, USA)


My life is shifting... Your work is intangible, ethereal, cosmically rewarding. i eat it up & savor it like a great sandwich! It made my day!
(Lisa PEREZ, USA, on IUOMA)

Thank you for the TALISMAN painting on the envelope. It is real cool and creepy at the same time. I haven’t seen a piece of abstract capture such as pain and emotion so well since I visited the museum of art in Toledo. Bravo!
(Sarah Jo Pender, USA, from the Indiana Women’s Prison)

I suppose you could characterize Guido's painting style as expressionist. I know he is very interested in dreams as a source for art and poetry, and these particular chapter pages seem like shadowy dream corridors filled with shifting images and scenes. The Michaux quotes work as a counterpoint, Guido's art is taking over when the limits of language have been reached.
(De Villo Sloan, USA, on my tribute pages to Henri Michaux, see LAMUSAR blog)

Guido’s art expressions are always poems and they show us the reality of our real faces and souls (Mariana Serban, Romania)

His titles have both inspired and educated me (Alicia Starr, USA)

dinsdag 17 augustus 2010

THIS BE A SACRED RITUAL



Intervention on a mail art envelope for the project "odd or weird looking animals" proposed by Heleen De Vaan from the Netherlands, accompanied by this text:

This be a sacred ritual

The Cobra and some of the outsider artists were inspired by how children draw and paint, so non-academic in essence. They invent their own world and techniques till education strikes back and tell them "to color within the lines" for instance.
As a kid I used crayons and I wondered if it was possible to paint with acrylic paints like drawing or stroking with crayons. First I used a coat of white on the paper and poured some rinsing water on that, so it became a canvas of different grayish tones. Then I put diluted other colors on that surface, with tiny strokes to have a crayon like effect. This resulted in a primitive animal drawing in a landscape. I let it draw for a day and then continued with some ink and water colors in similar tones as the acrylic ones. The effects and contrasts got milder, so I'll avoid that in a next work.

What was the purpose of the first cave paintings. Some see this as the beginning of art. Some see this as "decorating" the cave. Many see this as very functional and society related art.
The paintings were mainly on animals to be hunted to feed the cave community. So painting the animal was part of a hunting preparation? Try to catch the essence, the soul of the animal, so later you could catch the body? Something like that.

I'm not a hunter but I would like to catch my dreams, how I dreamt as a child? This for me is my sacred ritual.

The sun image is a bit of a joke and a tribute to the TV serial "Nurse Jacky".
Jacky and her husband are summoned to the school of their daughters. The youngest makes excellent technical drawings but there is no sun in her artwork, so the girl is labeled as problematic and should get medication and psychiatric treatment. This provokes a rebellion of nurse Jacky against these experts of the children's soul.
More and more we live in a society in the hands of experts.
They are the new inquisitors of the world…

Guido Vermeulen

PS
Beste Heleen,


De dieren van onze dromen hoeven geen dokters
Enkel woorden die de lenzen van grenzen genezen in de wind


Zij hoeven geen kooien, zij hoeven geen sloten
Enkel vleugels op rotsen en de hartkloppende stilte van jagers
Zij zijn zomaar tot wolken in water verdampt in gletsjers en bergen
& schuilen binnen de kamers van ziektedragers in de verbeelding
van wie wij waren als kind.


Guido
25/08/2010

1 opmerking:

  1. Beste Guido,
    Ik heb je mail goed ontvangen, hartelijk dank!
    't Was inderdaad puzzelen wat waar zou mogen, maar ik ben eruit! En hoop dat je 't o.k. vindt, zo?!?

    http://yourdoctorinmailart.blogspot.com/2010/09/guido-vermeulen.html
    http://realweirdanimals.blogspot.com/2010/09/guido-vermeulen.html

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