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TILT press release

 

 

Man Fred - “The first 5 years”

A retrospective reflecting on the artists’ work and philosophy, on the 5th anniversary of his emerging professional art practice.

See below for a detailed statement.

 

                                  Sample of works

                                                                       

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Man Fred

 

ARTIST’S STATEMENT

 

Spanning Belgrave artist Man Fred’s first five years of exhibition, this body of work is chosen to reflect his philosophy of art, and tease out the strands of issues that continue to preoccupy him. New works “Blasphemy and sanctuary” are placed in the context of the earlier “Fear project”.

 

His drawing, painting, photography and digital art explores disenchantment, fear, conflict, and loss of innocence. Psychologically, his work explores the role of fear in personal and societal relationships. Extreme positions and reactions are sure signs of the operation of this powerful motivator. Drawing on his dreams, and the current debates over transgression, and protection, Man Fred confronts some of these fears, and the undesirable outcomes that result.

 

Some images are at the end of this document, and High resolution images are available on request.

 

 

ARTIST’S STATEMENT Continued

 

“On Fear:

Several unique photographic and digital works in this exhibition are charged with the struggle to understand conflict. The works are sometimes overwrought and unsettling, as they explore the direct and indirect damage done to relationships by fear. Their expression, takes its cue from modernist painters.

On Innocence lost:

Is loss of innocence an inevitable consequence of experience? Illuminated by my dreams, these works are psychological landscapes and narratives. They are exciting and unsettling, and speak of the unacknowledged and the spaces between the symbolic and the reality signified. Can we accept the surreal, the presence of opposites, and the need for synthesis?

Conflict:

Blasphemy! Is digital montage photography? Is photoshop manipulation art? Can psychological narrative be contemporary? Why depict fear and displacement in a church? The sanctuary of religion is an illusion. It is more a bastion against reason, thought and expression. How is discussion even possible when censorship abounds and values are god given? These issues are raised in some digital works of the ongoing “Fear Project”.

 

I paint to communicate significant events in my life, my knowledge and doubt, the fragments of memory and dream, the joy and darkness of experience. Here I am; Self-conscious, playing games, obvious, hiding, subverting pain, finding meaning, going on.”

 

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL REALIST MANIFESTO

Dr. Manfred Krautschneider

 

 

We value: honesty above fidelity; meaning above decoration; the question above conditioned answers; the direct above the semantic; the form above the formal; the whole above the parts; the expression above the means; enlightened freedom above self interest; the struggle above complacency.

 

We abhor censorship. Expression of psychological reality is the role of the artist. Allow them to get on with their brave endeavors.

 

If we expose a nerve, it is through an internal necessity to make sense of our experiences, to solve our mysteries, to lay bare our inner reality and our fears. If  disturbed, examine your heart for the source and see what can be learnt. Art is open to many possible interpretations and to appreciate the complexity of the intended and subconscious implications requires an open mind.

 

When we put the irrational in service of the real, each individual, time and place invents its own art and contributes to the growth in human knowledge. 

 

Long live our forbearers among the Classics and Moderns, especially Dada, Surrealism, Expressionism and Pop.

 

About the Artist

 

Man Fred was born in Austria, and now lives and works in the Melbourne suburb of Belgrave. He worked as an Academic and Software Developer before retraining and finding himself in artistic expression. His emergence as an artist arose out of a need to investigate and express profoundly personal, yet universal, experiences of human frailty and emotion in the face of external and internal conflict.

Exhibitions

Solo Exhibitions

2007, Tilt, Belgrave – “The first 5 years” – Medium various

2005, Tilt, Ferntree Gully – “Anti-Romantic” – Medium various

2005, Tilt, Ferntree Gully – “The Fear Project - Prelude” – Medium various

2004, Tilt, Ferntree Gully – “Photonic Dissonance” – C type Prints

2004, Tilt, Ferntree Gully – “Why” – Recent Paintings

2003, Tilt, Ferntree Gully - "Reflecting” Paintings, and Prints

       

        2002, Mira Fine Art, Flinders St. Melbourne - Emerging Artists Program, Photographs and Prints

 

Group Exhibitions

2007, Art Melbourne ‘07, Royal Exhibition Building, Melbourne

2007, Burrinja Gallery, “Blasphemy”, Upwey

2005, Gasworks, Discovery Art Show, Port Melbourne

2005, Melbourne Affordable Art Show, Royal Exhibition Building, Melbourne

2004, Tilt, Annual Group Exhibition.

2004, Melbourne Affordable Art Show, Royal Exhibition Building, Melbourne

2003, Linden - St. Kilda Center for contemporary art - Postcard show

2002, DRCCC,  Upwey, “Terror – the exhibition” – Silver Gelatin Prints     

2002, 4 Cats ,  Abbotsford  "Grains of our Lives"  - Silver Gelatin Prints

2002, Musswellbrook Photographic Award

2002, Eckersleys Access Art Space, Melbourne  "Box Hill Institute Graduate Painting Show"

 

Represented in the Box Hill Institute Collection and in several private collections.

 

Education

Monash University, B.A., Ph.D.; Box Hill Institute, Dip. Visual Art