“Waldemar Kolbusz’s highly painterly and expressionistic works are redolent with colour and energy: the force of these two elements combined – the hallmark of Kolbusz’s oeuvre – are palpable in his recent works.

It is the tension and, ultimately, the balance between the sheer physicality and the colour palette and the emotive expression of the energy within Kolbusz’a work which render his art so engaging, evocative and elusive: the viewer is gently and skillfully carried across the surface of the works through the rhythm of the palette, texture and painterly devices, such as the delicate, but deliberate etchings, coming to rest on the horizon line or intangibly familiar but abstracted shapes and forms. Yet, the apparent velocity and energy of his work belies the considered creative process of gestation and maturation.

Indeed, what makes Kolbusz’s art so very engaging is that the artist enables the viewer to access the painterly journey: each layer and each action reveals itself such that the process of making the work becomes transparent. This transparency – both literal and metaphorical – evolves through each of the translucent layers as they fuse to create richness and depth.

In the end, Kolbusz – who is exhibited and collected nationally and internationally – creates deeply expressionistic work which penetrates sense of place, time and space to evoke a feeling and provoke in his audience an involved and sincere response. It is this inimitable clarity and pureness of expression that sets apart his decidedly sophisticated body of work.”

By Fiona Kalaf
Chairperson for the Board of the Art Gallery of WA.
July 2010

Perth-based Waldemar Kolbusz creates jewell-hued, nonrepresentational images that are intrinsically satisfying. His purpose is not to create a picture of something, the picture must be something - a kind of organism that lives according to its own law. With the relinquishment of the storytelling function, the artist becomes a kind of intuitive investigator of form, colour and painterly technique. My work often feels quite independent of me. I am becoming more and more interested in how a painting has an identity and integrity of its own as opposed to it being only a reflection of the artist," muses Kolbusz. "Squeezebox is a funny name for a funny instrument. It too has a life of its own."

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."

Jackqueline Houghton - Anthea Polson Art
SQUEEZEBOX
September 2011

“THERE'S a lovely fragility of line and texture that permeates Waldemar Kolbusz's otherwise bold, abstract expressionist paintings. The Perth-born artist eschews crooked slabs of saturated colour with brittle etches and scratches, sponged texture and bleeding streams of excess paint. Interestingly, while the former accountant's work favours vivid reds, pinks and blues, some of the stronger paintings in this series feature a kind of muted and organic palette that channels the likes of Mark Rothko and echoes with notions of landscape, soil and earth. Indeed, Kolbusz's paintings may be void of figuration but they're unyieldingly redolent.”

By Dan Rule
The Age, Melbourne 2009

“…one of Australia’s most exciting art talents.”

Megan Morton
BELLE

“Geometry and gesture converge dynamically in the canvases of Waldemar Kolbusz to achieve a vigorous synthesis at once sensual and architectural. Like Brice Marsden and very few other contemporary painters, Kolbusz has been able to extend the lessons of the Abstract Expressionists and turn them to his own ends in order to forge a visual vocabulary altogether his own. It is built upon both an intellectual comprehension of the painterly tradition to which he belongs and an intuitive ability to trust the spontaneous impulses of his own sensibilty.”

Byron Coleman
Critic GALLERY & STUDIO MAGAZINE NEW YORK

“…Waldemar’s intensely provocative abstracts.”

ISH
SINGAPORE

“Kolbusz has become a critically acclaimed young artist with an innate sense of colour and space.”
“His aesthetic is bold and unabashed with a brash confidence that belies the number of years he has been in the profession and his gentle modesty. And always, his use and understanding of colour is paramount.”
“Kolbusz’s canvases stop people in their tracks, and remaining ignorant of his work is getting even harder.”

Ann Pow
VOGUE

“Lyrical and lofty, Kolbusz’s abstract paintings are made of lozenge-like patches of colour. They pulsate and breathe, awakening the senses to their hypnotic post-painterly aesthetic.”

SYDNEY MORNING HERALD

“Perth-based artist Waldemar Kolbusz has become one of the hottest names on the lips of art luminaries around the country.”

SCOOP

“…this WA artist’s east coast debut, with the abstract series Freeway, is the stuff that Broadway plays are made of.”

SYDNEY STAR OBSTERVER

“Waldemar Kolbusz has undergone a revolution from within. Freeway stands as a testament to this rebirth of artistic desire through deeply pondered conversations with free-associational constructivism, reflexive minimalism and post-painterly abstraction.
…abstract and sublimely atmospheric paintings…
…offer the viewer a visionary experience realised through minimalist paintings of worldly and poetic sensibility and sensitivity.”

Jove Winters

“The light continues to resonate through the paintings by Waldemar Kolbusz. His endless energy and tireless passion have permeated into our community, sharing an aesthetic vibration of contemporary society. Within the pure language of abstraction, his language of colour, light and texture combine to produce art that screams, pulses, pushes, pulls, lulls and cools. The artist creates canvases that speak fluently to the senses. Kolbusz’s work has developed a momentum that appears to feed itself exponentially and communicates with immense intensity.”

Caroline Dettmer

“It looks like Waldemar Kolbusz, 31, will be one of our famous painters.”
“Waldemar’s endlessly rich work is destined to strike a chord any where, any time. His big canvases appear three dimensional, suffused with blocks of hypnotic, vibrant colour so exciting they seem on the verge of exploding.”

Rita Clarke
HOMES & LIVING, YEARBOOK

“…his work is garnering a huge amount of interest both here in Australia and in the cut-throat art world of New York. Kolbusz’s work has become highly sought after, with everyone from architectural firms and chic restaurants to the style gurus at Vogue Living magazine snapping up his vivid and energetic compositions.”

Jo Abbie
FRESH