Waldemar Kolbusz’s large gestural paintings deliberately defy description; skirting joyfully around the edges of meaning and representation in an attempt to tap into something the artist refers to as ‘purely the artwork itself’. This ontological game of cat and mouse unfurls across the canvases with abandon, flirting with and yet ultimately escaping explanation.

This staunchly expressionistic project is abstract yet altogether unambiguous; Kolbusz, an accountant-cum-full-time-painter, makes no secret of his artistic concerns – paintings which ‘work’ and are ‘beautiful’. “I am interested in what makes expressive works beautiful”, he writes, adding “-recognisable as beautiful and not as a mess.”

Kolbusz is ultimately an artist of thresholds, attempting to fix in paint the inexplicable moment at which sense, order and control begin to emerge from what the artist refers to as ‘mess’ and what Continental Philosophy might refer to as the ‘virtual’. From an undifferentiated chaotic flux elements of order gradually congeal to form something we can make sense of, something we can describe and understand.

In documentation, Kolbusz’s process is revealed to be intuitive and spontaneous. He daubs paint in patches, piecing the works together like a patchwork quilt rather than in layers, although erasure and removal of paint does occur in the later stages. The resulting works open out in flat planes, an appropriate manifestation of a practice concerned with avoiding hierarchical description.

“To try and articulate it on a higher level or attribute deeper meaning would be missing the point about it being a visual articulation”, Kolbusz says. Not higher, or deeper, but ‘visual’ – an endless coming together of colours, lines and shapes that somehow provoke in us responses that are first emotional and second logical.

In this latest body of work, there is a patina of control and order creeping into the exuberant works. “In my painting process there is a point when what has been unexpected, spontaneous and expressive changes to controlled and considered”, Kolbusz writes. “It is also at this point where what may largely be a mess could transform into something beautiful”.

In working at this threshold – the mysterious and alchemical point at which order emerges from chaos and beauty from ‘mess’ – Kolbusz takes up the idea of potential at its source. The ‘couldness’ of a canvas and its paints take centre stage as the artist’s gestures slowly draw out the beauty hidden somewhere within these disparate elements. “In this body of work I am trying to limit the marks to just when I think this transformation occurs”, he says.

In works like ‘slippers’ this game of limits is apparent – the work is all restraint, teetering at the edge of resolution without ever tipping. There are even hints of deliberate control and traces of a hard-edge tradition, like the bold magenta rectangle interrupting the otherwise loose and gestural ‘even higher’.

Ultimately, the series as a whole tends always to the limits, with intrusions such as the magenta rectangle serving only to nudge the viewer back into the oceanic flow of experience Kolbusz seeks to evoke. This experience, he says, should be ‘something’, but what that something actually is will differ between individuals, and it is in these differences the true meaning of the works lie. Reality congeals differently for us all; Kolbusz simply offers up a plane that is an artwork and mirror, waiting to project back to us something ‘personal and almost indefinable’.

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Robert Motherwell once quoted symbolist painter Odilon Redon who said that artworks should “inspire and are not meant to be defined. They determine nothing. They place us, as does music, in the ambiguous realm of the undetermined.”[i] It is this ambiguous realm that New York School abstractionists such as Motherwell positioned themselves in the mid 20^th Century, as they broke away from the long tradition of figurative narratives in Western art.  Generations later their legacy continues in painters of today such as Kolbusz, who work in a non-objective abstracted manner to inspire feelings, sensations and perhaps cue visual memories, rather than spell out a story or define a concept. It is from this intuitive space that Kolbusz conjures each unique work and the mood it inspires.

One of the most important facets of Kolbusz’ art is his use of colour, which can be both startling and sophisticated. In this exhibition the artist reveals his talent for creating unusual and dynamic encounters with colours, where fields that oscillate between muted neutral tones, to vivid, saturated hues are arranged on the picture plane. Colliding into each other, they make shapes that take on random dimensions. There is rarely a smooth dissolution of one glowing section into another, rather shapes and marks seem to clamor for attention as the artist wrestles their co-existence into an over-riding sense of organic equilibrium.

Kolbusz animates his surfaces with a range of different techniques. Sometimes the paint is applied as a stain of sheer colour, which is allowed to gather and drip. In other areas thicker paintwork and broad brush-strokes dominate and bristle against more aqueous forms. Occasionally sharply defined linear marks that are almost graphic in nature are cast against a pale ground. Glyph-like in their contained brevity of form, they act as markers of some secret language, one that seeks to communicate what words cannot.

While his images may not directly derive from the natural world and are more broadly inspired by the gamut of sensory experience – for me the fresh aquas and greenish hues of some works call forth visions of the Indian Ocean and its cool embrace. In others a rich palette of yellows and earthy reds evoke the colours of a desert landscape, and all of its arid intensity. Herein lies the magic of abstract art – it allows the viewer to go on a completely personal journey with the work that is essentially un-prescribed.

Yet regardless of palette choices, Kolbusz’ vivid and freeform paintings celebrate the act of creation itself as they resonate with the raw energy of spontaneous gesture.

Marguerite Brown MAArtCur FLINDERS LANE GALLERY

[i] Robert Motherwell, The School of New York, Frank Perls Gallery, Beverly Hills California, 1951 n.p.

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by Greg Natale, p206

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Rather, Costarella thought Kolbusz’s bold expressionistic art would provide the perfect backdrop for the designer’s colourful summer 13/14 collection, which will be unveiled at Mercedez-Benz Fashion Week Australia in Sydney tomorrow.

“Being Perth boys, Ray (Costarella) and I have known each other for ages and obviously I’ve known of his work and he’s known mine,” Kolbusz says. “When he approached me about working together I jumped at the chance because i thought it would be really good fun. I was just feeling that I’d like to do more thigs with my art and then this fell into place. I’ve never really done anything like this before so it was exciting for me.”

Colour is what unites Kolbusz’s large-scale abstract canvases and Costarella’s summer collection. Costarella wanted to mark his 30th year in the fashion industry with a bright palette, while Kolbusz, whose art graces international art collections and the walls of five-star hotels around the world, says his work is “all to do with colour really”.

“My art is essentially colour, but this isa bit of a departure for Ray. He hasn’t really used a lot of colour in his collections before,” Kolbusz says. “Creatively, I was most interested in what Ray’s departure was and what he was doing that was new and different. Apart from that and understanding his new palettes, the rest wasn’t really discussed. We left each other to our own devices knowing it would all work well together.”

A former accountant, Kolbusz ditched his day job in 1996 to concentrate on balancing colours rather than ledgers. His love of abstract art was intensified when he took a trip to Tokyo and encountered the work of the New York School of artists including Rothko and Motherwell.

“When I saw those pieces for the first time in the flesh it changed everything for me,” he says. “I realised that was how I wanted to paint.”

Costarella, who has long been a fan of Kolbusz’s work, says he thinks the collaboration for the show was a perfect synergy of fashion and art.

“Wal interpretedmy summer 13/14 palette into an energetic tapestry of texture, shapes and colour,” he says.

A fashion show with a difference, their unique interactive installation will be presented at Carriageworks in Sydney, featuring three small theatrical sets created around Kolbusz’s trio of 280cm x 180cm freestanding canvases. Models will move from set to set, with one acting as a photographic studio. The show will also include a time-lapse film, projected on to a wall in the venue, featuring a behind-the-scenes look at Kolbusz’s artistic process as he worked on the canvases.

WA songstress Grace Woodroofe will perform live at the event, adding yet another creative layer.

“It’s pretty cool when people from different creative fields get together. It changes your work a bit,” Kolbusz says.

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A splash of blue here, a neon jag there, it is as though he is some sort of magician, conjuring mystical hues from painters past to produce works that speak freely to modern audiences. In his employment of light, shape and texture, Kolbusz breathes vitality and freshness into each colourful creation, it’s thread of coherency evolving from viewer to viewer.

Inspired by the works of Rothko, Klein and Motherwell, Kolbusz’s paintings are in part an hommage to the abstract expressionist movement these artists helped champion. As with his predicessors, Kolbusz disregards accepted conventions in both technique and subject matter, focusing instead on super-sized reflections of the inner psyche. As Kolbusz puts it, “expression and feeling over exactness and formula”. And it’s precisely this organic and honest approach that has helped catapult Kolbusz to the top of the Australian art scene.

Having launched his career back in 1999, Kolbusz has since been a regular fixture at some of the country’s most revered galleries: Greenhill Galleries (Perth), Aptos Cruz Gallery (South Australia), Gunyulgup Gallery (Margaret River), Richard Martin Art (Sydney) and Axia Modern Art (Melbourne). He’s also developed an international following on the back of exhibitions in Hong Kong, Singapore, New York and Europe. Keen to broaden his horizons, most recently Kolbusz collaborated with esteemed Australian designer Aurelio Costarella for his Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week presentation. The interactive installation centred on three giant freestanding Kolbusz canvases, the collaborative palettes created to complement the new season collection.

Highly sought after and hugely collectable, Kolbusz works feature in many notable collections both nationally and internationally. Commissioned to create a 7m piece for the foyer of Metropol Crown Casino, Melbourne, he also infamously sold two collections in their entirety to the five-star Four Seasons and Galaxy Hotels in Macau for presidential suites. Vogue Living hailed him a ‘design aficionado’, and subsequently went on to purchase a piece for the magazine’s private collection.

That’s the power of Kolbusz’s art. It’s hard to find the words to describe why you love it but somehow it manages to trigger an emotional response deep within. Maybe it’s the colour; maybe it’s the scale; or maybe, just maybe, it’s the all encompassing beauty of one of Western Australia’s most talented creatives?

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Perth-born Waldemar Kolbusz does it more successfully than some artists – perhaps because he is mainly self-taught – although he admits to some trepidation.

“Letting go of the control is bandied about often by artists, but it is difficult and risky,” says Kolbusz. “However, because my work involves spontaneous aspects and expressionistic gestures, it often feels independent of me and my influence. It is this process I am becoming more and more interested in, the idea that the painting has identity and integrity of its own, as opposed to being only a reflection of the artist.”

Born to Polish parents, Kolbusz’s work reflects his Eastern European energy, yet he also remains painterly and expressionistic.

His energy creates movement and tension on his colourful canvas. He is also a dedicated and emotional colourist and there is a deliberate balance between his strong, carefully selected palette and the emotion or expression he wants to convey.

A noticeable rhythm also works its way across the canvas, with each work bearing clarity and definition.

Kolbusz took time to reach this stage. As a young man he abandoned visual arts studies at the University of WA and graduated instead with a Bachelor of Commerce degree. After completing post-graduate commerce studies in 1999, he reversed to begin painting full-time.

Kolbusz has since established a strong exhibition record, having shown in New York, Singapore, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Broome.

His new series ‘Squeezebox’, is on show at Anthea Polson Art at Main Beach and exemplifies his style of ‘letting go’ into free expression and intuitive movement.

“I am now addicted to not anticipating the end result,” he explains. “It is me who produces the work, but increasingly I experience itas a viewer more than a creator. This puts an interesting spin on the creative process and helps maintain healthy enthusiasm.”

Kolbusz’s work is not pre-planned. There are no sketches. It is also non-representational, so there are no studies of a potential subject.

“I begin the work by marking thecanvas haphazardly, with just a few general and very spontaneous crops of colour or lines,” he says. The work is then left to dry while he works on other pieces.

“After a few days I will consider the work more intently and begin the painting process,” he says. “I always hope to be surprised and challenged by the few marks that are there. They kind of happened with little thought, so i feel as if they are really without my influence. This forms the springboard for the work and it can then broadly dictate the palette and the feel of where the work might head. Of course, things can move from this at any time.”

As much as this may sound very relaxed, the truth is otherwise. When Kolbusz finds a work becoming contrived or predictable, he takes the risk of spontaneous change. “sometimes it lifts the work; sometimes it compromises it beyond repair,” he says.

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Kolbusz’ language of pure abstraction speaks fluently to the senses. Geometry and gesture converge in a symphony of hypnotic brilliant hues, luminous glazes, earthy dark stains, splashes and trickles. He has learned to trust his own instinctive impulses: “My work is not planned, there are no preliminary sketches. I try not to anticipate the end result which in reality, is a difficult and often precarious task. After a few spontaneous, gestural brushstrokes to christen the canvas, I leave it and come back after a few days. Up on the easel I consider the work more intently, always hoping to be surprised and challenged by the marks there.” Kolbusz says that “looking” is a big part of his painting process. The initial, unpremeditated brush-markings give him a feel for where the work might head and prompts palette choice. He readily accepts that direction might change at any time – and usually does as colours and shapes begin to assert an independent existence. The outcome is the result of Kolbusz’ innate sense for an aesthetic order that incorporates unplanned ‘accidents’. “I always use oils because they are creamy and have a materiality,” he enthuses. “You can move the paint, feel it. The new palettes are looser, riskier and sit at the extremes, I want them to either lullaby the viewer or scream at them – nothing in between.”

Those hovering, ragged shapes of saturated colour do indeed trigger powerful emotional responses, but there is also a cognitive pleasure to be had in lingering over Kolbusz’ chromatic orchestrations. Once we abandon the notion that good art is the skillful imitation of appearances, we are able to enjoy perception itself. True excellence lies in visual organisation – in the nuances of balance and imbalance, tension and harmony, action and repose. “I am increasingly experiencing my work as a viewer and less as a creator, and as a result have noticed a new energy and force in it,” says Kolbusz. “In my experience, an easily achieved painting is rarely character-filled. A piece with history always has things to squint at beneath the layers. I want to be surprised and excited by the piece when it is finished. I want the work to live on… sort of like a song that slowly becomes a favourite as opposed to a hit that is instantly loved and soon forgotten.”

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