Henrik Frei Larsson

Henrik Frei Larsson (born July 29, 1953 in Gothenburg , Sweden ) is a Swiss artist, painter, etcher and illustrator.

biography

Henrik Frei Larsson is a son of the Swiss Max Frei and the Swede Margareta Frei-Larsson, who moved with him and his brother from Sweden to Switzerland in 1956. In Switzerland, Henrik Frei Larsson spent part of his childhood in Niederglatt (ZH) and most of his childhood and youth in Pfäffikon (ZH) .

His father was a graphic artist, researcher, author and illustrator and has designed and written several books, including the book “Encounters with the Spider”. Max Frei spent half his life studying these fascinating insects. The professional draftsman and illustrator "looked" the spider in the face and produced 38 magnificent watercolors over the years. He worked as an illustrator and designer in Gothenburg and as an art director in advertising agencies in Switzerland. He was interested in the animal world all his life and distinguished himself as an animal draftsman and painter.

Henrik Frei Larsson is known not only as a painter, but also as an eraser. For the L'Artiste Kunstblatt , for example, the soft ground technique ( vernis mou ), aquatint with scraping technique and drypoint were used.

Henrik Frei Larsson has been a freelance artist and illustrator since 1976 and lives in Switzerland. As an illustrator and graphic artist, he designed and designed advertising and film posters for various well-known advertising and film agencies. He realizes projects for “art in architecture” with large-scale wall paintings.

Henrik Frei Larsson has been married to the gallery owner Sonja Kuriger since 2013.

chronology

• 1969–1973 apprenticeship as lighting designer and lighting draftsman
• 1973-1974 preparatory course at the School of Applied Arts Zurich , today Zurich University of the Arts (ZhdK)
• 1974–1977 training as a drawing teacher at the applied arts school in Zurich
• 1982 Diploma for higher teaching qualification in drawing and artistic design at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZhdK)
• 1976–1987 part-time work at the Realgymnasium Rämibühl in Zurich
• 1987–2007 lecturer in manual printing technology at the Zurich University of Art and Design (FHNW)
• 1988–2007 drawing teacher at the district school in Unterkulm
• 1990–1994 Artistic work mainly in the field of etchings
• Since 2008 examination as an expert in the final classes in the field of art
• Freelance artist and illustrator since 1976

Create

Henrik Frei Larsson addresses the contradictions between nature and technology, humans and animals, belief and death in his 40-year oeuvre and thus triggers controversial feelings in the critical observer. He plans his approach exactly, but reacts to the needs of the picture while working. It is characterized by its flowing transitions between light and dark and the resulting atmospheric effects of its realistic images. He is known not only as a painter but also as an eraser.

Henrik Frei Larsson has dealt intensively with a wide variety of techniques from the start. His work includes watercolors, oil paintings, tempera painting , mixed media and etchings.

His early works are meticulously elaborated, almost photographically accurate images in which nature and technology often come together in a harmonious coexistence. With the meticulousness of the researcher, he paints precise representations of various motifs. The spectrum includes humpback whales, landscapes, Indians, aircraft carriers, submarines, planets and the earth.

Henrik Frei Larsson works with images and photographs. With compositions that go beyond photography, literally overcome it, he creates the unique mood of the entire painting. He uses individual parts as building blocks of an overall composition and this creates levels of reality that are related to one another.

The core theme in Henrik Frei Larsson's works is the juxtaposition of mostly primeval motifs: animals stand against today's technology-driven world, life against war and death, embedded in the space that symbolizes the landscape, the world and the universe.

Since 1975, Henrik Frei Larsson has addressed the contrasts between nature and technology, humans and animals, belief, life and death in numerous exhibitions, thereby triggering controversial feelings in the critical observer. Frei Larsson himself said in an interview in 1988: “I don't want to conjure up powers in order to gain strength and inspiration from them. Power belongs to the Creator of everything I paint in my attempt to understand. I just twist the view and direct it to a possible meeting of 'opposites'. Perhaps these opposites are not so different from each other, but have the same origin in themselves. "

Between 1990 and 1994 Henrik Frei Larsson devoted himself mainly to etching. A series in the techniques of etching, drypoint, aquatint , scraping technique and soft ground technique ( vernis mou ). Taken in the graphic collection of the ETH Zurich. Printed in the printing studio of the renowned copper printer Peter Kneubühler (* 1944 Zurich, † September 15, 1999).

Henrik Frei Larsson has been working mainly on large-format canvases since 2008, on the one hand in individual works in which he directs the focus to a certain section of a motif, on the other hand in his recurring and unmistakable triptychs.

His series, published in 2009 in the Kunst7 gallery in Zurich, also shows oil paintings that develop their effect through the targeted play with contrasts in color, lighting and deliberate blurring of the motifs. The subjects of the photorealistic works range from depictions of people, sections of faces, depictions of animals, landscapes, industrial objects and planets. Each of these paintings speaks a different language and takes the viewer on a journey into their own history to encounter Henrik Frei Larsson's point of view.

With his over eight meter long triptych (oil on canvas) “Glimpses of Reality, Myth and the Journey into the Secret of Eternity”, which was created in 2013, Henrik Frei Larsson sets another high point in his art.

Exhibitions

• 1975 and 1976 art scene Zurich (purchase of etchings by the city of Zurich)
• 1976 Exhibition Zurich Land at the Kunstmuseum Winterthur
• 1979 Kyburg Gallery
• 1979 Kunstmuseum Winterthur
• 1983–1994 Regular participation in the annual exhibition of Aargau artists at the Kunsthaus Aarau. (Purchase of works by the Canton of Aargau and the Kunstverein Baselland)
• 1985 Gallery HU Roth in Bremgarten
• 1986 Zetzwil Aargau
• 1987 Arrigo Gallery in Zurich
• 1989 Arrigo Gallery in Zurich
• 1989/90 City Hall in Aarau (purchase of works by the city of Aarau and the Kunsthaus Aarau)
• 1990 Ruedertal weaving and local history museum
• 1992 Participation in the first triennial for original printmaking, Musée des Beaux Arts de la ville du Locle
• 1993 U-Gallery in Zurich
• 1994 Gallery "Zum Alten Schützenhaus" in Zofingen (purchase of a work by the city of Zofingen)
• 1995 Galerie Schloss Neuhaus, Salzburg, Austria
• 1997 Participation in the 14th International Triennial for Original Prints «Vision 2000» in Grenchen
• 1999 Galerie Amtshimmel Baden, group exhibition
• 2002 Galerie Elisabeth Staffelbach, pair exhibition
• 2004 Gallery Zimmermannhaus City of Brugg
• 2009 Gallery KUNST7, Zurich, «Luminous Works of Art»
• 2009 Gallery b -146 in Zurich
• 2010 art fair SCOPE in Basel, represented by art worx b -146
• 2013 Gallery KUNST7, Altendorf, «Triptychon»

Awards

• 1976 Art grant from the Canton of Zurich
• 1983 grant from the Board of Trustees of the Canton of Aargau
• 1990 Contribution from the Board of Trustees of the Canton of Aargau
• 1992 Contribution to printmaking from the Board of Trustees of the Canton of Aargau
• 1998 Annual sheet (etching) for the Board of Trustees of the Canton of Aargau

Purchases of works / museums, public institutions

• Kunsthaus Aarau Switzerland
• Presidential Department of the City of Zurich, Switzerland
• Collection Neuhaus Salzburg, Austria
• Graphic collection of the ETH Zurich, etchings, Switzerland
• Kunstmuseum Winterthur, Switzerland
• Kunstverein Basel, Switzerland
• City of Aarau, Switzerland

Illustrations films / cinema

• From one who ran across the field, 1977, director Markus Fischer . Illustration of the movie poster
• Schilten, 1979, director Beat Kuert, Filmkollektiv Zürich AG. Illustration of the movie poster
• Flugjahr, 1982, director Markus Fischer, Filmkollektiv Zürich AG. Illustration of the film poster
• Viamala, 1983, TV film co-production DE / A / I /. Illustrations shown / used in the film
• Brandnacht, 1993, movie, director Markus Fischer, Warner Bros. Illustration of the DVD cover

Quotes

“... The second thing that strikes you is that thematic, time-critical engagement is rather underrepresented. The strongest works in this respect hang in a small side cabinet and are also modest in terms of format: At first glance, Henrik Frei's idyllic little pictures in the style of old etchings, which are then interspersed with completely destructive elements on closer inspection. "
Tagesanzeiger Zurich, 1976 about the exhibition Zürich-Land at the Kunstmuseum Winterthur

“Nature overgrows the threatening. The technically convincing, but meaningfully contradicting pictures by the Zurich drawing teacher Henrik Frei, which will be shown until May 12th in the HU Roth gallery in Bremgarten, can trigger very controversial reactions: from reluctance to incomprehension to unlimited enthusiasm. "
Wohler Anzeiger, 1985, about the exhibition in the gallery HU Roth Bremgarten

“… Henrik Frei mainly shows small-format watercolors, landscapes from our area, then etchings, India ink, colored pencil and pencil studies, to which the viewer has direct access. The larger works of the painter require a more intensive examination of the picture's message. (Oil pastel gouache and acrylic pastel painting.) Formally and spiritually, it is about the contrast between nature and technology. … “
Oberwynental, 1986, exhibition in Zetzwil

“… I don't want to summon powers in order to gain strength and inspiration from them. Power belongs to the Creator, from everything I paint in my attempt to understand. I just twist the view and direct it to a possible meeting of "opposites". Perhaps these opposites are not that different from one another, but rather have the same origin. ”
Henrik Frei Larsson in a 1988 interview

“I'm not a magician, I'm an observer. I see something in the real world and put it in a new context in the pictures. My way of representing things wants to make the incomprehensible tangible and vice versa the tangible incomprehensible. ”
Henrik Frei Larsson in response to a question from an art historian in 1988

“... You have tried again and again to compare Henrik Frei's pictures with other art phenomena, with the surrealists, the photo-realists, the fantastic painters, etc., but all these comparisons are limp. Henrik Frei combines levels of objects that do not belong together - a humpback whale and a rocket base, for example - but there is no surrealism. Henrik Frei works with photographs and images, but he uses them as building blocks of an overall composition, so he does not stick to the photo-realistic image. Although Henrik Frei's pictures seem magical and fantastic due to the lines and the precision of the representation, a closer look confirms what Henrik Frei himself says: ´I relate levels of reality to one another, but all of these picture levels are images of reality. The only thing I do is shift the levels so that constellations arise that do not seem possible. ”In other words, it is the viewer who gives the images their meaning by interpreting them. … “
Region Aarau, 1989, Exhibition City Hall Aarau

"... At second glance it becomes clear that these pictures are only obliged to naturalism in terms of the painting technique, not in terms of the statement that, in the combination of apparently disparate opposites, has something surreal and unreal in a purely formal manner: the fact that technical achievements, from who undoubtedly emanate a fascination, are juxtaposed with equally fascinating phenomena of nature, the shaping of humans and their intervention in nature are called into question. Why is the plane combined with the face of the Indian and the dead cows? In contrast to ´Surrealism´, however, which suspects that reason as bright as day can never produce art, that art belongs to irrationality and antecedent, and which progammatically asserts a senselessness of what happened and life, the painter Henrik Frei takes the visible World serious again, bitterly serious. … “
Zofinger Tagblatt, 1994, exhibition Altes Schützenhaus Zofingen

“… A zebra eye, a cut head, colorful bird feathers. Henrik Frei Larsson devotes himself to small details with great intensity. Sometimes it is animals that attract the photorealist's interest, sometimes landscapes and people. The various motifs are presented in close-up, enlarged on twelve square, large-format canvases. ... It is about more than mere motifs that unfold their power here; Behind each of the pictures is an entire theme, as gallery owner Sonja Kuriger confirms. ´Henrik Frei Larsson is a very open-minded, open person who deals with religions and beliefs, with people and
death.´ she says. “ Art magazine Regioartline, 2009, exhibition Galerie Kunst7 Zurich

“... This triptych, which is already unbelievable with its size of eight by almost two meters, captivates you from the first moment, but if you open your heart and soul wide and fully immerse yourself in this picture, completely new dimensions open up of emotionality. «When I paint a picture, my soul, my development and my story are immortalized there. But I also want there to be space for the viewer's story and something completely different to trigger ”explains Henrik Frei Larsson. The core and center of the triptych is the face of an Indian girl. The unreal color scheme implies a mixture of sculpture and being, a symbol for living people. The protective headscarf frames a delicate face, the expressive eyes, which appear so young and yet contain wisdom from many generations, look at the viewer and before you know it, you are in silent dialogue with the picture. ´I would like to use my pictures to urge everyone to dedicate themselves to this expression, because this look means something completely different for everyone.´ ... ´I want my picture to “fall out” of the world, i. H. people should always be able to discover something new and it should stay that way for a lifetime. 'And so artists and works give the term “uniqueness” a completely new dimension. ´This triptych is the main work of my 40 years of painting life so far. But of course I want to go further and I have to get better. But that's a completely normal process. The next big work is already being planned and the story of Henrik Frei Larsson is far from being finished. ”
March-Anzeiger, 2013, exhibition Triptych“ Views in Reality, Myth and the Journey in the secret of eternity ”, Galerie Kunst7 , Altendorf

Entries

• SIK ISEA Swiss Institute for Art Research

Web links

• www.hfl.ch

Individual evidence

1. ^ Ott Verlag, Thun, 2003.
2. ↑ L'Artiste Kunstblatt
3. ↑ Brigitte Schmid-Gugler: Out of the ordinary. St. Galler Tagblatt, December 30, 2011.