If art is an all-individual expression of the most individual emotion, the starting point is with emotions that arise from injustice. The basic emotions of sadness, fear, horror and anger come from that sense of injustice. Stifling powers that, in my opinion, do not form a good basis for expressing in a work of art. The power therefore lies in turning these emotions into love and hope. Forms of aggression such as fear, horror and anger are made absent in the creation process. Converting the sense of injustice into a positive force in which the overwhelming beauty that surrounds us is expressed, is my starting point for creating a formal visual language.
Emotion is the driving force and motivation for research and expression.
AN ARTIST SHOWS IN THE DEEP OF HIS SOUL.
It is primarily the search for the “why” that forms the basis for expression. “What makes that” … and “How is that …” controls the thinking and creation process. What causes social problems such as inequality, discrimination, poverty, destruction of nature, etc. to arise and be sustained. What are the root causes and is there something at the root of the social problems we are confronted with? If we sink deeper and deeper into our minds do we end up with the origin, with the origin? If we can see and understand that point, can it also be turned into a positive force? The evolution of this thought process takes shape in a visual language in which an attempt is made to leave behind the aggression that evokes the experience of social problems. Connectedness and feeling connected therefore also occupy a central place.
Connectedness in a connected universe is the central principle.
Believing in the power of nature, of which we ourselves are a part and seeing ourselves as nature from which culture originates is an essential starting point in the thought process.
Bringing nature and culture together is therefore an important part of my work. Do we see ourselves as part of nature? Are we part of it or are we above nature? The sense of superiority of the ego makes us experience ourselves as unique and disconnects us from the environment. Notwithstanding, man is a social being who needs connection with each other. Nature, from the smallest to the largest, however, is one large living organism with which each of us is connected, of which everyone is an integral part.
The central theme of connectedness results in a different way of looking. It is about seeing, understanding, abstracting and visualizing an overwhelming beauty that surrounds us.
STARTING POINTS
A number of important principles always form the basis of the thinking and creation process. They form a touchstone that, however, is not set in stone. They evolve along and form anchor points on which to build further. They drive the creative process and give direction to the research. The idea that the world can be understood on the basis of patterns and underlying principles is one of the most important insights of man. Pattern recognition and interpretation are an essential characteristic of humans. We look for, recognize and interpret patterns both in nature and in culture. Everything we know and can do today is largely the result of the fact that humans have come to recognize patterns, from ancient times to the present. This pattern recognition is not an exclusive human right, animals and plants also do pattern recognition, but how we deal with it differs essentially from other living beings because we recognize principles in patterns. These principles expose underlying relationships between things.
In my work, I express patterns based on geometric figures and make the invisible visible in a formal visual language.
Everything is energy. We experience the interpretation of the vibrations around us.
Nobel Prize winners in physics leave no doubt about it, the physical world is all energy. Nothing is solid in the quantum world. They also proved that thoughts are responsible for keeping together an ever-changing energy field and thereby the shape of the objects that we know. We have five physical senses with which we perceive the environment around us. Our senses perceive energy from a certain fixed point of view and that is how we create images and form our perception. However, this observation is not exact or complete, it is only an interpretation.
All our interpretations are based solely on our “inner map” of reality, but not on the real truth. Our “map” is the result of the collective experience of our personal lives. Everything you see in our physical world began as an idea that continued to grow until it materialized through a series of steps into a physical object.
It is a very important starting point to see that nothing is what it seems. How we structure our society arises from an idea and therefore changeable. A different way of looking and seeing changes the interpretation and thereby the formation of our society.
Artwork Frederik Vaes 