Talking in the Night

Comment

Comment by Sven Froekjaer-Jensen on January 1, 2013 at 5:50pm

Hello Julie

Thank you very much for you words, and yes working in that way is a soup, an immense ocean of blue water, a freedom and an ability to be in that water for a very long time without missing air. Sometimes I wonder if it is the same feeling a rock star has standing in front of an immense public and just doing what he has to do. Anyway have a Happy new Year.  

best regards Sven

Comment by Sven Froekjaer-Jensen on January 1, 2013 at 5:46pm

Dear Kristen

I think I did something wrong, because your comment disappeared. Dont know why. This strange electronic world. But anyway, I am glad you liked the anecdote of the honey ant song. The stigman of being old fashioned if one paints landscapes is a bit more tricky, because it is difficult to paint everything if one wants to be taken seriously here in Denmark. I often remember an old - and rather famous - landscapes painter from Seeland, Denmark who lamented that he could not paint beech forests because it was considered not right. So he refrained. His name was Karl Bovin, and I felt sorry for him when he talked about it, because he didnt use his freedom to the utmost edge. That was also one of the reasons for me to paint landscapes. Maybe I will go on. Just to do what I want and just to be naughty.

Thank you again for your comments, I will try and use a2a a bit more, but it is difficult to get time both to paint and do all the other things.

NB. I hope your rain has stopped, it is still raining here.

best regards Sven

Comment by julie keller on January 1, 2013 at 1:24pm

This conversation between the 2 of you and the gift of the Honey Ant Song is a perfect beginning to the new year for me.  i call it a non verbal, emotional soup that I have to work with.  there is an exhilaration in being immersed in that soup in the process of creating.  it is a "great gift" as Sven says .  It began slowly in the primitive human brain and is now fast tracked in the human newborn....the scribbles, the wavy lines, the spirals, the circles, the dance, the symbols that allow us to map the human experience.  thank you both for your comments.

Comment by Sven Froekjaer-Jensen on December 31, 2012 at 8:08am

Dear Curator Kristin T Woodward.
Thank you very much for you kind review of my painting Talking in the Night. It is a great encouragement to me in my work.
At the same time, it is makes me very happy, because you hit the essence and meaning of the picture very precisely, and that supports the idea of art being universal and able to reach across borders and time.
Although contemporary art is partly controlled by fashion like trends, there is a common language, that is instinctly undestood and at the same time a source of understanding and joy. To describe the world and what is happening to us on our travel through life in a non verbal language is a great gift and one of the most wonderful aspects of human nature.

This experience of art as a medium of understanding across time and cultural differences is just so fantastic and reminds med of the Story of the Honey Ant Song - and an event from a Danish juried exhibition where I got an award and one of the judges commented on the painting and - just like you - hit all the meaning of the work. I have desribed it on my homepage www.svenfroekjaer.com . You can also find it directly on this link http://www.svenfroekjaer.com/Why/Why.htm 

Thank you again, also for the beautiful quote from Fleur du Mal, which I will read again.

I wish you a Happy New year here from rainy Denmark.

best regards

Sven

Comment by Resident Curator on December 30, 2012 at 9:36am

Curator’s Comment:  

 

This series of black-ground paintings is arresting. The paintings offer an intense sense of artificial light, as if neon pigments are applied over alternating matte and glossy surfaces.  Talking in the Night is especially provocative, as cryptic, enigmatic symbols animate the small human figure in the bottom of the piece.  The intense orange contour scribbles around each defined shape, charging the imagery with electric energy.  This piece also has an interesting relationship to landscape, reducing it to emblematic and iconic symbols; a crescent moon, trees and small yellow sun.  I can’t quite make out the identity of the larger abstracted forms, but they maintain a strong figurative and directional presence. The dark grain of the wood support also adds to the distinction between the organic quality of the imagery and the artificiality of the saturated color.  The related piece entitled A King on the Run (I) shares the eccentrically articulated contour, and has a similarly pleasing relationship between positive and negative space.  I can appreciate more of the manipulation of cool blue-green hues between the stained glass like composition in this work- perhaps because of the larger segmented shapes.  I’m reminded of Baudelaire’s poetic observation that man crosses through forests of symbols which watch him with familiar eyes.