Swipe Painting

Karin Vermeer is an independent artist who has lived and worked in Rotterdam since 2002. She was born in Tilburg in 1970, where she went to Fashion school until accepted at the Willem the Kooning Academie in Rotterdam in 1990 and got her degree in Illustration in 1994. After working as a freelance Illustrator and Decorator for a couple of years, it was time to start as an independent artist creating paintings and murals. Fashion and female portraits have always been her main interest, even when she was a little girl, constantly looking into glossy fashion. She was fascinated by the way these beautiful models were portrayed but also found it disturbing how unrealistic it was the way these pictures were manipulated. That is what started her interest in mixing up photographs digitally and manually. My works are created by digitally combining and editing photographs and paintings into new, original works of art. My favorite subject is the female face. I specialize in portraits created by overlaying and blending different pictures of different people to create unique, non-existing persons. Besides that, I take pictures of models in my studio and create new images mixed with old walls, grunge posters, and other exciting elements. When the digital part is ready, I print the image and start painting it. I create thick structures and a lot of layers of paint and gel over them. In this way, I try to make the digital image tangible again. My work is not about explanation and concept. It is a game to me about triggering the senses. I start with no idea in general, but by looking at pictures that interest me and mixing them, a new image slowly evolves. I mix prints, paint, gel medium, and a math/gloss coating with most of these works. I create paintings by hand; they are originals individually, slightly different in editions of max. 25 pieces.