Bri Vermeer

Everybody's Lookin' [for the Meaning of All Of This «JOYBOY»] | Café São, de Lorimier, Montréal, QC

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“My experience is that my family functions first and foremost as a unit of grief and remembrance. We are “​verloren hoop”​ : the advance guard. A lost, forlorn heap. My work seeks to make monuments of sentimental items. This knitted, patchwork blanket — crafted many years ago by my Oma Vermeer-Honingh— holds memories, experience, and age within its many knots. Omnipresent in my mother’s van, this blanket serves as a safety measure on long drives to visit family in mid-north Ontario and beyond. I began taking photos on my solo travels to document my own travels. The context and location of each painting is provided by the title, as a form of recordkeeping. My large scale paintings often situate it within an unknown and ambiguously rendered environment to serve as a reminder that it is not necessarily the place that provides meaning, but the memory of the space you bring with you. ”