Laust Højgaard’s solo exhibition Fable and Flesh delves into the tension between our physical presence and the emotional complexity that often conflicts with how we wish to be seen. While we strive to project strength and pride, embodying an image of unshakable, organic force, our inner lives are fragile, multifaceted, and sometimes elusive. This struggle not only reflects personal dissonance but also echoes historical and mythical portrayals of humanity, caught between ideals of power and the reality of vulnerability. Fable addresses our relationship with others and the natural world, while also speaking to the internal conflict between our physical and mental selves. Højgaard’s work challenges us to confront the fragmentation between how we perceive ourselves and the image we project, urging us to reconsider how we relate to both the world around us and the inner tension we constantly navigate.
Laust Højgaard’s universe combines exaggeration, a keen sense of detail, finely thoughtful texture and distortions. The artist works on several paintings at the same time and thus gives real coherence to his work, making the sources of inspiration resonate.
On his creations, conceived as boxes in which a thousand references must succeed to enter, characters cross from different influences: mythology seems to meet with pop and urban culture. The bodies, tagged with symbols, play on geometry, irony and gigantism. Each figure, unique, adopts its own body language materialized by a direct work on the canvas, in multiple layers of paint creating a palpable depth.
Laust Højgaard (*1989, DK) graduated from the Design Academy in Odense, The Drawing Academy, in the class of Artem Alexeev, and the Danish School of Media and journalism in Visual Communication. He now lives and works in Svendborg, Denmark.
