In both Greek (physis) and Latin (natura), nature signifies that which is essential to every being from the moment of its coming into existence. In terms of his vital existence, the human being is therefore himself a part of nature, which in its totality—comprising all immediate reality, all things and events in their holistic interrelation—formally embodies being as such.

Nature and spirit stand in polar opposition, yet are at the same time intrinsically connected. The philosophical concept of spirit as it is used today, in this polarity to nature, emerged during the era of Romanticism and Idealism. Hegel had already suggested that nature is a concealed and powerless form of spirit, whereas Kant, by contrast, described nature as the existence and totality of all things insofar as they can be objects of our senses and thus of experience.

Nature, then, is that which conditions us, while spirit establishes the conditions that bring us into relation with one another through the formation of art and culture, civilization, ethos, and morality. With regard to art, Kant writes perceptively: “In a product of fine art one must become aware that it is art and not nature; yet the purposiveness in its form must seem as free from all constraint of arbitrary rules as if it were a product of mere nature.”*

Verena Freyschmidt’s works are shaped by these conditions. Her paper cuttings and diverse material prints refer less to a romanticism of nature, to an unreflective experience of nature or to representational intentions, than to the inherent orders that reside within it. These structures form the foundation of her exploratory working method, which nevertheless does not exclude notions such as longing, melancholy, and memory.

Freyschmidt develops and investigates her experience of the world—and of nature and its essence—through extensive travels to distant cultures as well as through walks in the natural surroundings close to the artist herself. Crucially, however, Freyschmidt does not depict nature as such; rather, she appropriates what is essential from nature and from the natural. In doing so, she also explores the inner nature of the human being—her own nature—which, as it were, is guided by her spirit. For although her studio practice is detached from the external environment, it is no less natural.

At the outset, Freyschmidt proceeds in a manner similar to écriture automatique, initially allowing autonomous, self-determined structures to grow, which she subsequently reworks and condenses. She thus first places something natural, something unconscious, something in a sense foreign and unknown to her onto paper or other surfaces, which she later further elaborates, intensifies, and compresses.

The processual character of Freyschmidt’s works is therefore an essential component of the connection between spirit and nature. The formal structures she creates through material printing, color gradients and streaks, traces of paint and splashes, crystallize in this process of chance into the trail of her artistic inquiry. It is as though the artist learns to read these applications of color, partially unveiling the secret they contain, and then responding to them, entering into correspondence with them. Freyschmidt strives to answer these structures—initially formed by the nature of chance—through conscious and concentrated interventions with brush, paint, and ink pen, extending, connecting or separating, opening or fluidly interweaving these abstract forms, in effect granting them a kind of diction. The scalpel, too, finds its place in this process: guided by the artist’s hand, it removes all superfluous material from the support, creating openings and passages. It is a searching and simultaneous exploration of what lies behind things, behind these structures.

The completed works now appear like memories of a language of nature that is at times capable of speaking to us—an articulation we may not always fully understand, yet one we can nonetheless experience and feel with equal intensity.

Through her work, Verena Freyschmidt thus accomplishes something extraordinary: she not only unites in her artistic practice but also renders sensually and vividly tangible the supposed opposites of nature and spirit. Ultimately, she creates an art that is at once nature and art. Immanuel Kant would surely have appreciated her.

Immanuel Kant, The Three Critiques, Stuttgart, 1975, pp. 302–303.

Text: Stefan à Wengen More