Patrice Vermeilleâs universe refers to our own reality only in an allusive way. For him, painting compensates by its graphic or colored creativity the insufficiencies of our systems of representation. Painting opens a new dimension, existing only from the moment the creator decides to give it life. There is a whole cosmogonic aspect in Vermeilleâs work that one can easily surmise in for example the Genesis or the Deluge series. The artist is a Creator, or better, a conceptualizer of potentialities. One gets an idea of what might interest this artist in the virtual conceptions of our advanced computer technology. The computer conceives the virtual, the Creator brings it into the realm of the real, if we consider this word as expressing a virtuality that finds its place in the reality of the codes that direct community living, of which art is an integral part. The brain conceives but the hand executes. Thus the finely hatched graphics, identifiable and allusive, that characterizes Vermeilleâs work.
Left are the eyes for recognition, for there is nothing in the world at which we wouldnât at least glance. The one needs the other. In order to catch oneâs eye, Vermeille resorts to the use of color. His colors are fluid and obscure. Fluid as time crossing space. Obscure because the imaginary world would not know how to limit itself to the seductions of natural brilliance, a fortiori to the criteria of mass art consumption. Vermeilleâs sun is a dark star for it is a completely inner one, all in depths and chthonic gestation.
It is as though the light of the brain, be it electronic, is refracted, attenuated by its passage through an interior dimension which is secret and intimate. Vermeilleâs color is like a messenger of the gods presiding over the reCreation. From which evolves the theme of the angel that he is currently working on, metaphorically in the role of mediator between the artistâs inner cosmogony and the creatures of sight (!) for whom it is destined. It is this revelation of the secret that every painting contains, the necessary intimacy of the artist with the movements presiding the genesis of a universe, the imperative need to represent to the eyes of others key fragments of inner virtualities, that seems to me to be the essential part of Vermeilleâs contribution to the production of our times. A time when it is necessary to assess matters and our place in the universe.

Bernard Teulon-Nouailles
RegâArt, December 2000/January 2001