Year
    2020 - ongoing
Material
    Wood textile engine plexiglass composition wheel diptych 210 x 118 cm each
Mreee's (2020), Nederlands Film Festival, Utrecht (NL). Photo: Sander Heezen
Description

At first glance, the Mreee's look like white relief paintings, vaguely reminiscent of Jan Schoonhoven's monochromes. However, there is more behind these works. If you allow yourself to look at them a little longer, a slow movement draws you in, deeper and deeper. You begin to see a series of abstract landscapes, the mood changing from calm meadows to stormy seas. Each of the works has its own vibe, created by its unique patterns, movements and composition.

Mreee is the title of a series of kinetic paintings that explore the phenomenon of moiré. These are interference patterns created when two identical patterns subtly slide past each other. The interference creates an alienating perception of space in the viewer's eyes and brain, a distorting dimension, quiet and hypnotic. Consciousness shifts to the experience of incorporeal digitality and material physicality.

The works can be seen as a continuation of the Zero Art Movement in the digital age. Vermeulen's work plays with digital images while being purely analogue. The grid in the textiles resembles a series of ones (1) and zeros (0) - open and closed - while as a whole it appears as if the clouds are drifting away in the sky and slowly returning.

Vermeulen has explored this physical phenomenon of moiré through the Mreee's, as well as through his installations More Moiré (2020), Slue (2018) and 10 Meters of Sound (2014).