Vermeer performance by Fine Art student Jessica Kuhn
Through the centuries, Vermeer's paintings have inspired many – especially _Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window_. In the past year, 2nd year Fine Art student Jessica Kuhn has intensively studied the Old Masters' techniques, with ‘Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window’ being an object of particularly intense focus. Recent discoveries using x-ray technology, as well as the restoration of a hidden 'cupid' under a layer of oil-paint, have inspired her performance "Un/Cover." In it, she paints her interpretation of what could have been under her own painting of Vermeer. Once finished, she covers everything up again. The iterative process of spontaneous covering and "uncovering" invites the audience to become subsumed into a series interpretations.
“I firmly believes that classical art shouldn't be confined to the past, but rather should be continually reinvented and reimagined in the present”, saus Jessica. In her interest by learning from the Old Masters she studied paintings of Ilya Repin in Florence and Vermeer in Haarlem, while studying Fine Art at the Willem de Kooning Academie in Rotterdam.
You can read more about Jessica's performance via https://www.parool.nl/cs-b75a8c21 and https://nltimes.nl/2023/06/03/guerilla-artist-playfully-painting-vermeer-rijksmuseum-exhibits-final-week
