Ine Vermee is not an artist to make grand gestures, but rather takes small, well-considered steps. These start out carefully, but in the end are taken decisively, following a long process of contemplation, of formulating basic assumptions until arriving at the best possible method of execution.
Each of her works is a stage in an ongoing investigation into the effects and properties of colors: used independently, but also in mutually dependent relationships and under the influence of added elements like texture or external factors such as the light in a certain space and the location of the spectator.
The use of existing color ranges, such as the RAL color fan deck or the ‘Meier Whites’, provides her work with a rational, methodical foundation. They make her investigation into the effects of colors ‘verifiable’. However, the choices she makes during the working process are strictly personal and testify to a great sensitivity to color. Due to her restraint with respect to artistic interventions, Ine Vermee’s works are unpretentious. Because of her use of muted tones and subtle shades of white the works are not immediately noticeable.
But although at first glance these manifestations may appear to be inconspicuous, Ine Vermee has a great capacity for using them to dominate a space. In her 2008 exhibition at the Rijksmuseum Twenthe, she succeeded to constantly completely change the color of one of the museum galleries with a series of shades of whites, plastered in a variety of structures, depending on the varying incidence of light throughout the day. This power of the work can actually only be experienced on-site. The changing daylight and the position of the spectator in relation to the work are essential herfore.
Within the context of the collection of the Rijksmuseum Twenthe, Ine Vermee is a worthy successor of artists such as herman de vries, Jan Schoonhoven or Sol LeWitt. As an heir to a formal tradition, she has managed to avoid the pitfall of bloodless, rigid abstraction.
Her work radiates and swelters and has the ability to move along with the light and the spectators gaze.
Lisette Pelsers,
from 2008 to 2012 director of the Rijksmuseum Twenthe in Enschede and director of the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo from 2012 to 2023
