Ed Vossen Every child is an artist. The challenge is how to remain an artist when you grow up.

Ed Vossen

Educated at Moller Institute,
Hoogeschool Katholieke Leergangen.
Tilburg in Tilburg, Netherlands 1985-1990.

Living and working in Denmark since 1990.

Go to Ed Vossen's blog ...

Contact

Taarbæk Strandvej 119
DK-2930 Klampenborg  •  Denmark
Phone: (+45) 23 47 19 67

ed@vossen.dk

Reflections on
Ed Vossens paintings

Svend Hangaard, scenographer/visual artist

Ed Vossen paints like a child. Or rather, he paints like an adult human, imagining himself how a child would create art without prejudices, but with a mere wonder about life's curious existence.

The colors are beautifully and generously layered, repeated with a childlike joy and sensuality. The surface is free of geometry and perspective reference, but primitive as petroglyphs or natural peoples strange graffiti.

A general characteristic is humor and recurring characters examine the relationship between the masculine, the feminine and the childlike, and the family's eternal role as a hotbed of tranquility and turmoil.

The paintings are surreal in the sense that they clearly reflect a world, but it is a different kind of world than the one being written about in the newspapers. As usually in surreal tradition it describes a subconscious knowledge, not a tragic apocryphal knowledge, but a happy wonder and a deep interest in the world and its strange creatures.

Ed's work is not political in the ordinary sense, but there is obviously a kind of political statement in describing the world in heavenly light. The precise implications Ed friendly leaves to the viewer.

 

Musical and quirky
visual narratives

By Lis Engel, Kunstavisen, Denmark

Ed Vossens paintings have a unique tone, at once playful, spontaneous yes almost childlike, but simultaneously also refined with a grand sound and a feeling of imaginative sensitivity and humor that opens into a cheerfully surreal treasure where "anything can happen" - and things do happen.

Symphonic abstraction of color

The paintings are at first glance very easy to get attracted to, but they continue dragging, primarily because of the intense and subtle color symphony. The paintings are sensual, beautiful, sharp and take place in an abstract composition that draws parallels into geometric abstraction.

Graphical touches

Simultaneously with the symphonic geometric abstraction Ed Vossen also uses characters as graphic rhythms. Rhythms that play through the symphonic sounds of tracks that sometimes can be interpreted, and sometimes remain partly hidden as memories. Meanings are put into play and give us a glimpse of the endless landscapes of signs, lines and rhythms of meaning, touching the poetic sounds from memory and imagination’s twisted strings. You can easily pull parallels to Miro, but in its very own version.

Quirky fables of the heart

These symphonic and rhythmic, poetic layers play wonderfully together with a layer of spontaneous cartoon characters that move into the spotlight with their moment of ironic stories, humorous and surreal atmosphere, as a fantastic fable for modern man. Quirky stories that link our view to our modern life-scenes to childish wonder, to the adult’s self-irony and to the love of the wise. It is a very modern cartoon version of the heart's fables. The lines articulate an intensity in the bodily energy shown in children's intuitive and spontaneous ways of expression, here masterfully expressed with the adult's empathy for tragi-comic pictorial stories.

"A paradisial quarrel"

The titles are yet another layer, that can help to open up a quirky and whimsical multiple dimension, at once simple and accessible, and immediately understandable by any picture enthusiast, and simultaneously a refined pictorial universe surrounding it quite close together with the fantastic and the quirky. The paintings are very life-affirming and deserve serious attention.

Exhibitions

2015:  Museum Marktbreit, Malerwinkelhaus mail art project, Marktbreit, Germany

2015:  Musée du Petit Format, International Biennal of Small Graphics Forms, Nismes, Belgium

2014:  Anderson Gallery, Bridgewater State University, mail art project, MA, USA

2014:  Egedal Kunstforening, Egedal Town Hall, Denmark

2014:  Galleri Bredgade 22, København, Denmark, International Art Money Exhibition, København, Denmark

2014:  Møntbørsen Falconer Centre, Copenhagen Coin Fair, International ArtMoney Exhibition, Frederiksberg, Denmark

2013:  Atölye Arts-In, mail art project, Besiktas, Istanbul

2013:  Mail-Art Mafia, mail art project, Gdansk, Poland

2013:  Galleri Zona 598, mail art project, Montevideo, Uruguay

2013:  Gallery Show, , mail art project, Haverhill, Massachusetts, USA

2013:  New Millennium Center for Contemporary Art, mail art project, Changsha, Hunan, China

2013:  "Give and be happy" Sequioa Tee Project 2013, Amsterdam, Holland

2013:  Nova Art Coordinates, Beijing, China

2013:  Gallery Copenhagenartport, Copenhagen, Denmark

2012:  Gamma Gamma Gallery, "Emergency Arts Collective", Las Vegas, USA, mail art project

2012:  Atelier 5B, Schondorf am Ammersee, Germany, mail art project

2012:  Library of the Educational Sciences Faculty, University of A Coruña, Galicia, Spain, mail art project

2012:  Central Library, Campus of Pontevedra, Universidade de Vigo, Galicia, Spain, mail art project

2012:  Copenhagen Art Fair, Copenhagen, Denmark, Art Money project

2012:  Festival of Modern Art, Taganrog, Rostov on Don, Russia, mail art project

2012:  Sequioa Tee Project, Amsterdam, Holland

2012:  Stichting IK, Middelburg, Holland, mail art project

2012:  National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, Korea, mail art project

2012:  Atelier Felipe Lamadrid, El Puerto De Santa Maria, Cadiz, Spain, mail art project

2012:  National Library, Santa Cecilia, Spain, mail art project

2012:  Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Cecilia, Spain, mail art project

2012:  Copenhagenartport, Copenhagen, Denmark

2012:  Nova Art Coordinates, Beijing, China

2012:  National Museum, Trinidad and Tobago, mail art project

2012:  La Tranca, Cura Malal, Provincia de Buenos Aires, Argentina, mail art project

2012:  Galleri Aswara, Faculty of Fina Art, National Arts and Heritage Academy, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, mail art project

2011:  Gallery Copenhagenartport, Copenhagen, Denmark

2011:  The Butcher's Steakhouse, Beijing, China

2011:  Nova Art Coordinates, Beijing, China

2011:  Modesto Art Museum, Modesto California, United States (Airmail 100 project)

2010:  Galleri Erarta St. Petersburg, Russia (mail art project)

2010:  Modern Art Museum St. Petersburg, Russia (mail art project)

2010:  Hotel Swan Lake, Wuxing, China

2010:  The Butcher's Steakhouse, Beijing, China

2010:  Gallery Copenhagenartport, Copenhagen. Denmark

2010:  Nova Art Coordinates, Beijing, China

2010:  Centre d'Artiste de Rawlon, Canada (communication project)

2010:  Tradem Galleri, Craiova, Romania (mail-art project)

2010:  Galleri Aswara Faculty of Fine Art, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, (MMAE 2010)

2010:  FLUXUS ST.LOUIS in collaboration with MUSEUM of CONTEMPORARY ART ST.LOUIS Open Studios, St. Louis, USA

2010:  Museu Brasiliero da Escultura, Sao Paolo, Brasil (a book about death project)

2010:  Atelier & Galleria Filipa Lamadrid, Cádiz, Spain (mail-art project)

2010:  pLAyLAnd Galleri, Los Angeles, California, USA (critical mass project)

2010:  1st South-Russia Biennale of Contemporary Art, Roston on Don, Russia (any penny project) Moscow, Russia (any penny project)

2010:  MOMA Wales, UK (a book about death project)

2010:  MacKenzie Art Galleri, Regina, Canada (mail art project)

2009:  Danmarks Apotekerforening, Copenhagen, Denmark

2009:  Capacent, Copenhagen, Denmark

2009:  Danmarks Landsindsamling, Århus, Denmark

2009:  Gallery Klampenborg Kunsthandel, Klampenborg, Denmark

2008:  Sam Art, Køge, Denmark

2008:  Gallery Klampenborg Kunsthandel, Klampenborg, Denmark

2008:  Danmarks Landsindsamling, Copenhagen, Denmark

2007:  Gallery Art Share, Copenhagen, Denmark

2006:  Gallery Yavanna, Copenhagen, Denmark

2006:  Sam Art, Art Today, Køge Denmark

2006:  Artville, Copenhagen, Denmark

2006:  Gallery Art Share, Copenhagen, Denmark

2005:  Gallery Yavanna, Copenhagen, Denmark

2005:  Den Grafiske Højskole, Copenhagen, Denmark

2005:  Gallery Sandkassen, with Svend Hangaard, Taarbæk, Denmark

2005:  Sam Art, Køge, Danmark

2005:  Gallery Art Share, Copenhagen, Denmark

2004:  Gallery Art Fact, with "20x20 Visions", Copenhagen, Denmark

2004:  Kings Street Gallery, with "20x20 Visions", Amsterdam, Netherlands

2004:  Gallery Art Share, Copenhagen, Denmark

2004:  Gallery Sandkassen, with Svend Hangaard, Taarbæk, Denmark

2004:  20x20 Visions, Copenhagen, Denmark

2004:  Art Today, Køge, Denmark

2003:  20x20 Visions, Copenhagen, Denmark

2002:  Gallery Eisner, with Svend Hangaard and Claus Ib Olsen, Copenhagen,Denmark

2002:  Gallery Sandkassen, with Svend Hangaard, Taarbæk, Denmark

2002:  Recruiters A/S, Copenhagen, Denmark

2002:  20x20 Visions, Copenhagen, Denmark

2002:  20x20 Visions, Malmø, Sweden

2002:  ArtVille, Copenhagen, Denmark

2001:  Gallery Den Gamle Station, Vedbæk, Denmark

1999:  Foodbox Art Project, with Ismar Cirkinagic, Rusudan Melikba and Habibi George Al Khouri, Copenhagen, Denmark

1999:  Svanholm Gods, with Svend Hangaard, Skibby, Denmark

1997:  Two Of A Kind, Svanholm Gods, with Laurentius van Dam, Skibby, Denmark

1996:  Conglomerate, with Ismar Cirkinagic, Copenhagen, Denmark

1992:  Vesterkopi, Copenhagen, Denmark

1992:  Vision, Copenhagen, Denmark

1991:  Kosmopol Art, Copenhagen, Denmark

1990:  Vision, Gilleleje, Denmark

1990:  Carte Blanche, Copenhagen, Denmark