1969	born Perth Western Australia
1987	commenced Bachelor of Arts (UWA) Visual Arts major
1991	completed Bachelor of Commerce degree (UWA)
1994	completed post graduate studies (CPA) and travelled Europe
1996	started to paint full time

art busting for attention
ISADORA NOBLE

Since Waldemar Kolbusz embarked on his journey through the Arizona and Nevada desert in 1997, "Freeway" has developed into a vast and developing collection of work - signaling the start of the artist's obsession with expressionism. Before that there was painting in studios in Provence and Portugal, conversations with a sculptor in New York and a lifelong inspirited artistic fascination.

The journey continues. Today, painting from house and studio in Mt Lawley (Perth's "Montmartre" if you will). For large walls for international businesses, for deliciously vacant spaces in five star hotels, tete-a-tete with the hushed, lunch-time table-talk in savvy, city restaurants, beside the bed-side tables of affluent collectors - up against garage walls.

Kolbusz is a weaver of moods, his yarn a palette of hues.

At thirty-eight, this ex-accountant has no regrets swapping ballpoints for brushes. What began as a "self-indulgence" for Kolbusz has now met with art world approval.

Vogue Living dubbed him "Design Aficionado" and after photographing a piece, purchased it for their own collection. And collections for IBM and KPMG, a commissioned 7m piece in 2009 for Crown Casino, Melbourne, and two whole collections of 19 works for the presidential suites of Four Seasons in Macau.

The list goes on. His pieces have been widely commissioned and purchased for stylish homes and offices nationally and internationally, including the fashionable Balthazar restaurant in Perth and commercial spaces in Singapore including a collection for a private bank, CapitaLand Resindential Limited and Singapore Technologies.

"He has had phenomenal success. Already his prices are on the rise," comments Warren de Maria, of Warren de Maria Gallery, Paddington Sydney, where his exhibitions sold-out.

"One art critic admires Kolbusz's work for its "intertextuality", while Vogue Living has used it for rather less conceptual reasons. Either way, this WA artist's east coast debut, with the abstract series Freeway, is the stuff that Broadway plays are made of." Brook Andrews from Sydney Star Observer.

Broadway maybe. On opening night. And there's not a seat left in the house.

Kolbusz doesn't support any pretence about his work. "I paint to express. I am concerned with employing challenging combinations of colour and shape, . . . to paint works which generate an original awareness of colour, to have feeling."

"There is a joy in the use of the broadbrush and a real feel for the medium, paint for paint sake. Our viewer's response is as spontaneously positive as the works themselves." Ashley Jones, Director, Gunyulgup Galleries.

Kolbusz's artworks truly seduce the viewer. His large canvases in oils combine rich colours which are often butted against deep dark stained backdrops. By using combinations of translucent colour and wax encaustic swipes of impasto texture, he achieves canvases busting for attention.

"Within the pure essence 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," believes Caroline Dettmer of Code Red Art.

"Abstract and sublimely atmospheric paintings . . . A visionary experience realised through minimalist paintings of worldly and poetic sensibility and sensitivity." Jove Winter, Art Critic West Side Observer.

Kolbusz has titled his ongoing series of paintings "Freeway", a code for the fundamental journey - life. It also has physical reference to the desert freeway in Arizona and Nevada where the artist travelled.

"I started in Las Vegas with all the apparent kitsch and pomp and fraud, and set out on this amazing route very alone through Nevada and Arizona. I did my thinking and arrived at the Grand Canyon," Kolbusz said.

Born in Perth to Polish parents, Kolbusz has embraced the Eastern European work and life ethic. He is a risk-taker with tireless energy. His instincts drew him to art at an early age. But Kolbusz remains primarily self-taught, abandoning visual arts studies at the University of Western Australia to graduate with a Bachelor of Commerce degree.

Kolbusz pursued his accounting career which lead him to the coastal town of Esperance. Confronted by its unique and unforgiving light and landscape, its vastness and vibrant aqua ocean, it became obvious a career change was imminent. Later returning to Perth, Kolbusz found himself questioning his priorities. In 1994, working for Sealcorp he negotiated a three day working week to afford more time to paint. In 1996 he resigned completely from accounting to pursue a full-time commitment to painting.

When not painting, Kolbusz pursues his other passions. Of course in accordance with European tradition he entertains lavishly with friends, loving to prepare and share food. He has an eye for design and use of colour accordingly.

He describes the heady feeling he had when first confronted with the 'New York School' of artists at an exhibition in Tokyo: Rothko, Klein, Motherwell, and later being in the "Rothko Room" at the Tate - "I remember being drawn into the images, and being almost aghast at how immensely powerful they were. I was dizzy. They confirmed my suspicions that the sort of painting I was interested in doing contained expression and feeling over exactness and formula."