Rotteveel Vermeer NL, 1976

Rotteveel Vermeer, is a Dutch art studio by colourists Jochem Rotteveel (1976, NL) and Thomas Vermeer (1984, NL). Their work is an expression of Jochem and Thomas’ shared fascination with colour. Both of them start with the same process: creating colour studies. They explore how colours can affect each other as well as how they affect the mood of the viewer. The result of their efforts is a collaborative series of works, created in the tradition of Jochem’s methodology. With foil and tape, they investigate several boundaries. By folding the foil, they add volume onto flat surfaces, stretching the boundary between two-dimensional and three-dimensional. The material becomes pasty but does not reveal its origins. The spectator does not know whether it is metal, plastic or ceramic.

Jochem Rotteveel describes himself as a painter, whose process uses special materials: foil and tape. For more than ten years, these materials have served as Jochem’s ‘paintbrush’ and ‘paint’ as he continually refines his technique with each new work. Again and again, he is able to encompass new colours and compositions onto his canvas. At times, it is the composition of the swaths of colour that dominates. At other times the eye is drawn to the countless folds and creases that ripple across the surface.

For the past ten years, Thomas Vermeer has been working as a stylist for major brands such as Hermès, Vlisco and Longchamp and fashion magazines like ELLE and Harper’s Bazaar. His style is distinguished by its carefully considered balance of colours and complementary materials within the silhouette. This extends a layered and dynamic quality to the final photograph. He is constantly exploring the tension between realism and fantasy, modernity and nostalgia, elegance and rawness, spontaneity and order.