Dear Vermeer

With a familiar wall stain on "het straatje", a milkmaid’s steady pour, or the glisten of a forbidden pearl: Vermeer lures us in and suspends time. The viewer becomes a silent voyeur in a tableau vivant, revelling in the simplicity of human connection. The blockbuster Vermeer exhibition attracted 650 000 visitors to the Rijksmuseum over its four-month Amsterdam run. I didn’t expect to be moved. “Dear Vermeer” is my artistic homage to the Dutch Master. The project explores the relationship between Vermeer’s oeuvre and Amsterdam’s inhabitants, from the Stadhouderskade’s anonymous crowd to the Rijksmuseum’s expectant visitors. The camera looks in, capturing and immortalising transient tableaux: my subjects become unknowing actors in a social commentary on cultural participation.