FRIE J. JACOBS
About
“Frie J. Jacobs’ work is like breath and everything that man breathes on. The breath of life. Art, the artwork is born.”
“Nature and everything that embodies or comprises it, embraces it, the four primal elements, namely water, fire, earth and air, but also (and always) music, are important themes in this artist’s oeuvre, who creates works with fire as well as ‘score works’. In them and with them, he captures the fragility, the essence of our existence.
The wind seems to blow through his visual work, poppy seeds and stamens improvise on paper, the artist’s hand composes movements, that evokes the ebb and flow of night and day, dream and reality, visual music, voices, and original variations on this theme, of fire that he has visualized, in a score, a subtle burning poetic of and for the image.”
From “Frie J. Jacobs – On the musical, poetic power of an Image” - Inge Braeckman
ARTIST STATEMENT
ARTIST STATEMENT
“Frie J. Jacobs’ werk is als de adem en alles wat de mens met die adem bewasemt. De adem die het leven schept. De kunst, het kunstwerk is geboren.”
“De natuur en alles wat haar belichaamt en behelst, omhelst, de vier oerelementen water, vuur, aarde en lucht, maar ook en steeds de muziek, zijn onderwerpen in het oeuvre van deze kunstenaar, die niet alleen werken met vuur maar ook de zogenaamde partituurwerken maakt. Daarin en daarmee vangt hij de fragiliteit en de essentie van het bestaan.
De wind lijkt doorheen zijn beeldend werk te strijken, papaverzaden en meeldraden improviseren op papier, de hand van deze kunstenaar componeert vloeiende bewegingen als dag en nacht, een droom en werkelijkheid, visuele muziek als het ware, stemmen, en telkens weer originele variaties erop, voor het in beeld gebrachte vuur, als een partituur, een subtiel brandende poëtica van en voor het beeld.”
Uit “Frie J. Jacobs - Of, over het muzikale, poëticale vermogen van een Beeld” - Inge Braeckman
I am an interdisciplinary artist. My oeuvre includes painting, drawings, three-dimensional and digital works, in-situ interventions, visual music scores, handmade artist's books,… For that I use just about everything that occurs in nature: plants, seeds, flowers, roots, a mushroom, charcoal, beeswax , rain, fire, ... but also acrylic and oil paint, photography, video.
I also create soundscapes for videos from mainly foreign artists, and I work together with others on various projects.
BIO
Frie J. Jacobs is a Belgian visual artist. His credits include exhibiting at The 1st Feminnale of Contemporary Art at the National Museum of Fine Arts, Kyrgyzstan, the Art Festival Watou in Belgium, and the Brussels International Underground Poetry Festival at Wiels. Along with participation in numerous group and solo art shows he also (co-)curated a lot of exhibitions.
Jacobs also composes soundscapes for videos.
He recently published in the U.S. anthology, Futures Trading and in Maintenant, a journal of contemporary Dada writing & art by New York-based publisher Three Room Press.
A book about his work, entitled A lesser life, was published in 2017 with an introduction by New York writer Mark Blickley.
In 2022, a book entitled Stiltenisse was published with text by the Belgian poet and art critic Inge Braeckman.
In 2024, a book about his visuals scores was published, including an interview with Annemarie Peeters and a contribution on visual music scores by Jelle Dierickx, doctor of musicology.
Some of his visual scores were performed during the Musica Divina festival 2024 by Floris De Rycker, Sebastian Enriques, Barbara Ardenois and Maja Jantar.
Work in private collections in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, the United Kingdom, New York and California