10 Questions with Sven Frøkjær-Jensen

As an artist working primarily with drawing and painting, Sven Froekjaer-Jensen strives to reach the utmost perfection of expression. He was born in a small Danish town in 1943. Although he lived in an area well known for its artists, he declined every idea or offer of becoming a painter and instead got his M.A. from the University of Copenhagen in 1969 in history and religion and worked with those subjects giving lectures, writing books and teaching, while raising his family. In 2008 the urge to paint became too strong, so he started seriously working on his art.

His debut came with the juried Danish exhibition: Kunstnernes Sommerudstilling in 2011, and since then, he has had a lot of juried exhibitions, solo- shows, and group exhibitions in Denmark, Germany, Poland, Sweden, Greece, Italy, and the USA, including New York. He has received many rewards and grants for his art in Denmark and abroad. In 2021 f.ex he was admitted to the very prestigious Danish exhibition Portrait Now at The Castle of Frederiksborg, Danmarks Nationalhistoriske Museum. His art is included in private and public collections in Denmark, Europe, and USA. He has been married since 1965 and has three children and eight grandchildren.

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Sven Frøkjær-Jensen - Portrait in front of I told you Babe, I am a Hooker for a King (2020)

ARTIST STATEMENT

In all his works, he strives to describe and understand human nature, its structures, and relations in the world of today, often using unconventional materials or sometimes installations to unmask or describe the deeper structures of the human mind. In that way, he builds a bridge between different worlds of expression, spanning the abyss across the diversity of human thinking.

To fulfill his artistic goals, he is constantly working in two directions strongly connected, maneuvering in the battlefield between old techniques and adequate new expressions of our time. He gets his technical ballast and skills from the old masters of the 19th century, especially the drawing technique of the so-called Copenhagen school. He uses that necessary knowledge to get the freedom of expression, which is the only highway to the description of the dreams and content of present life, which he shows in his so-called fabulations.

His goal is to reach the onlooker in a way that brings their minds together, making it possible to walk the paths of understanding - exposing humanity's very old realities and dreams. Therefore he is working intensely and seriously to depict the real or outer world in the shape of the landscape or the human form. This work gives him the necessary artistic and technical freedom to create his nonverbal myths on the canvas - myths that can be expressed with a figurative background or quite freely. And although, as a young man, he fought hard not to be a painter, he finally has learned, as always in art, there is no end to this story, no final blow or glory. It just comes and never leaves.

I told you Babe, I am a Hooker for a King, acrylic and oil on canvas, 150x100 cm, 2020 © Sven Frøkjær-Jensen

INTERVIEW

First of all, tell us a little more about your background and how did you begin making art?

It is not possible for me to find the beginning of making art. It is just like singing the blues; it has always been there. To me, art is an intertwined and necessary part of living, and my life began about 80 years ago, so I suppose that was where it started. Long before I found out I had to be an artist. I was surrounded by paintings in my childhood because my father was interested in art and bought paintings of quality. I grew up in a part of Denmark well known for its artists, mostly landscape painters, so I got used to exhibitions and painters working. After the very early death of my father by an accident, my mother, who was a librarian, had contact with many of the artists living in the area and befriended some of them. So art and artists were part of my upbringing, and discussions about art and literature were the same, but that didn’t mean I saw myself as an artist. Quite the opposite. I come from a family of craftsmen, farmers, priests, and businessmen and no artists. So that was not the path, I thought, I was cut out for.
I just had this small problem: From I was about 17 years old, it was impossible for me to resist the wonderful temptation of painting, but I was ashamed of the urge and tried to keep it a secret. And I really didn’t want to be an artist. So when somebody saw my works and talked about exhibition or wanted to help me, I just said, the paintings were made by my cousin or brother. I don’t know, why I reacted like that, being shy, but instead I went to the University of Copenhagen and studied history and religion. After finishing my studies, I worked as a high school teacher, writing books and giving lectures all over Denmark. All the time I had this hidden strong need to paint and kept on doing it in secrecy.
Maybe because I was too critical of my work. I still have to fight that feeling, and actually I can only appreciate my paintings, if I have forgotten them and suddenly encounters them. I really would have liked to understand, how gifted I was in working with art, when I was young, but that was not in the cards. Today I can see, that many of the paintings from the early days were up to my standard of today. Sometimes somebody told me I had a big talent, but I just didn’t believe them. It is a riddle to me today, that I reacted like that.
When I was 65 years old, I decided to try and become a painter. I don’t know why. It was just like that. The time was right.

Tree of life, acrylic on canvas, 80x60 cm. The Art Society of the National Museum, Copenhagen.2008. © Sven Frøkjær-Jensen

The castle long gone, oil and acrylic on canvas, 80x60 cm. Juried Spring Exhibition. Vendsyssel. 2010 © Sven Frøkjær-Jensen

You embraced the artistic career in 2008, after spending several years giving lectures and teaching history and religion. Why did you choose this path? And what inspired you to finally follow your passion for painting?

I am not sure I did choose the path of art, it is more appropriate to say, it did choose me, but that is just a way of expressing, that I don’t know why. It just felt right. I had had a pair of exhibitions before 2007, and I had travelled Europe with my wife and friends selling art on the streets in the summer of 1985, but I didn’t take it really seriously before 2007. And I was scared to death. When I should deliver my works to apply for my first juried exhibition, my wife had to force me to bring in the paintings, or else she would do it. I just wanted to go home without delivering them. Period. After being admitted to that exhibition, it became a little more easy, and today after so many juried exhibitions, grants and honors in many places, it doesn’t bother me anymore. In 2008 I left my teaching, which I liked very much, and turned to be a fulltime artist. Just because I had to. It sounds a bit inflated to say, it was my destiny, but it felt like that. Still do. Maybe I at last understood, that life is terminated at some age, and that I had to go for art, because the time was running out.
In doing so, I met two unexpected problems. The first one is the shortness of time, and the other is more serious, namely that starting so late in life, as I did, means that your values are embedded in yesterday. Although I work with the everlasting or eternal human structures, I am still chained to the aesthetical values of my childhood and youth. And that is both a blessing and a trap to be avoided.

Can you tell us about the process of creating your work? What aspect of your work do you pay particular attention to?

I use two ways of working. The first is the important technical training. The enhancing of my skills in drawing and the preoccupation with the many, many possibilities of colors, composition, and content that has to be conquered to get the freedom of expression, I need to create exactly, what is necessary, also in my so-called fabulations. I often use months to find out how a certain colour work, or what results changing elements in the creative process leads to. And being in the process I really do believe, that I will never find out, but then suddenly comes a breakthrough, and the problem is solved, just to give place for another one. I work at least 2 to 4 hours a day with art, in many years after 2008, it was much more, but since this kind of work is so rewarding, exciting and always leading to new solutions, it doesn’t feel like work. More like solving a riddle and dancing at the same time. Just being alive.
There is no particular part of my work, I have to focus on. I just do it, but I am very keen in removing flaws or faults in the paintings. I can feel – not understand with my mind – what might be wrong, and then I just keep correcting it many times.
In this kind of business there are a lot of choices to be made. Not only technical but also of more serious nature. So when I started, I promised myself never to be boxed in a brand, because I consider it deadly to the development as an artist. You have to be absolutely free to let the process lead you, where it wants. No boundaries.

If the moon had a sister it got to be you, acrylic on cardboard, 80x60 cm. Gallery Zero, New York. In collaboration with Institut Cervantes, Spain. 2013 © Sven Frøkjær-Jensen

Where do you find inspiration for your work?

I don’t look for inspiration; it is just there. If I didn’t have to sleep and many other obligations also to the wonderful family, I am blessed with, I could go on painting all the time. And out of every painting grows a new one or a new set of paintings. I normally make 6 to 8 painting in a series, and it often starts with phrase or a feeling I have to examine. It can also be a piece of music.

Is there a piece you consider a “breakthrough” in your career?

Not really, but there are two paintings I consider especially important. The first one is the fabulation, The Shaman being part of the Shaman series. It expresses, very precisely, what I wanted to say.
The other paintings in the series were sold long time ago, but I just wouldn’t sell this piece, being too close to me.
The other one was shown at the juried exhibition in 2011, that I consider my debut. It is a portrait in which, I tried to take away all the superfluous and just go back to the very beginning of art. The title is Never saw a Woman so alone.

Do you have a role model that you’ve drawn inspiration from when creating your art?

There are so many wonderful and strong people in both art and science, that I deeply admire, but the only inspiration I can find, dates back to my childhood, when I saw the painters in Odsherred working with their exiting colors especially the red and blue. I am very sorry that I could not ask the painters of those days about their way of working, but I was too young and foolish for that. I have always been very inspired by the strength of other humans, who set their goals and follow them without leaving their chosen path. One of the geniuses I have admired, since I saw his The House by the Railroad more than 60 years ago, is Edward Hopper, who is able to put so much spirit into a single picture. And for the technical mastery I have found a lot of inspiration from Danish painters from the 18th century f.ex. C. W. Eckersberg.

What are you working on now, and what are your plans for the future? Anything exciting you can tell us about?

On the technical front, I am as always working with portraits, drawing the human figure, and depicting other parts of the so-called real world like, f.ex. landscapes, just to keep my abilities alive, so I have the freedom to paint, whatever is necessary.
In my fabulations where I try to describe deep human structures, many of them very old, I am just now examining a hidden part of the human mind out from the sentence: When the wilderness is gathering all its children back again, meaning that below the civilized surface is lingering so many dark and sinister possibilities. I have earlier worked with the same problem from another angle in the Babylon Project, which was shown among other places in New York in 2013. The counterpart is the project Searching for the Door into summer, which I finished last year.
My plans for the future are at the same time very clear and very uncertain, because of my age. I will go on as long as, I am breathing, but where the development takes me, I don’t know. When I was a small child, I ran away from my grandparents' house searching for what was outside the borders of the town, and I am still looking for what is out there with my art. So working with art is for me a great opportunity, a dance and a very serious challenge. But mostly a wonderful and immense gift.

Is there anything else you would like to experiment with in your art? Any technique or medium you would like to incorporate into your practice?

Yes, experimenting is part of the daily work. Examining colors and their function and always searching for the right expression. Just now, I am focusing on thin colors in acryl, and every year I try to use oil colors, because they are a bit more powerful, but every time I stop again, because of the stench of turpentine, being allergic to it. Years ago I worked and exhibited installations among other places in Athens, Greece, and I might take that up again later on a bigger scale.

What do you wish to accomplish this year, both in terms of career goals and personal life?

I have some exhibitions in Denmark and abroad, and then I am going to finish the projects mentioned above. Years ago, I held a lot of lectures all over Denmark about art and other subjects, and somebody asked me to start that up again, but I am in doubt if it will take too much time from the painting.
In my personal life, I just want my life to go on as it is. Actually, I want to be better to a lot of things, because I get so many gifts and love from my wife, my family with children, children In law and grandchildren, and from my friends, and I want to be able to appreciate it to the full extent. And then I want to get a better understanding of human nature and the interaction between humans and in that way maybe acquire a bit more wisdom. And then of course working on staying healthy and well using fitness, meditation and other interesting possibilities.

Finally, what is one piece of advice you would give to a young artist?

Maybe I am not the right person to give advice, because I started much too late as an artist and made many mistakes, but I will try anyway.
It is important to separate dream from goal. Therefore it is essential to set a time limit. Many authors I have met, gave themselves two years to fulfill their goal. The same is important for a painter. When you decide to be an artist, you take or give yourself the right to speak up, to take control. That is the most important decision. But the world have to give you back the right to speak up, meaning you have to get the important juried exhibitions and awards. If you don’t succeed in that in a certain amount of time, it might be better to find something else to do with your life. But until you reach your set time limit, go on bravely. You have the right to be there.
On the technical front you have to learn to master the trade. Too many artists are fencing in their talent by lack of technical knowledge.
And then you have to network. Find others to work with and be inspired from. Use the global possibilities, the net gives so many opportunities to work worldwide. Go for it. It is just out there. Remember life is short and the arts are long and there to be. Good luck to you.

*The Autumn moved across your Skin.* My wife shown at the prestigious juried exhibition Portrait Now at The Castle of Frederiksborg, The Danish National Historical Museum. 2021
© Sven Frøkjær-Jensen

And the last question. You have been in this trade for 15 years. Was it worth the trouble and would you do it again?

It was no trouble, but of course a lot of work. But if you are so lucky to see your dreams come true, you are just like an athlete willing to press yourself to the utmost. And I was blessed with a lot of luck, because luck is also necessary. When I look back and remember all the exhibitions in USA, Europe and Denmark, the honors and rewards, all the wonderful people I met, and most of all having been given the possibility to follow my path and work with art, I feel immensely grateful. I am also blessed with the help from my family and wife, who has always supported me and has been my best and most enthusiastic critic. We took the route together, and it would never have been the same without her. So yes, I would do it again and again. Searching for the card, that is so high and wild, you will never have to deal another. Still searching.

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