Our Guest Speaker for the KAS May 2017 meeting is Ted Blackall, Abstract Impressionist
Ted Blackall, Painter
Training began: RMIT Painting School
Mentors: William Frater, Harold Freedman, Murray Griffin.
Post graduate studies with: Fred Bates, William Grunstein, Joshua Smith, New York Artists League.
Tutor at: Julian Ashton School, Sturt University Summer School, 3rdi School of Painting.
Exhibiting: Royal Arts Society, Holdsworth Gallery, Bridge Street Gallery, Baronia Galleries, Raglan Galleries, Lasting Impressions, Golden Wing Lounge, Newport Artworks, The Private Gallery. Wentworth Galleries, Gallery V. Manly Galleries ‘KCWTC’ exhibition. Humane Society International, Fattahi Stamford CT, Zorya Greenwich CT, Mosman Art Prize inclusion three times, once commended.
Commissions and Collections: International Olympic Committee, Moet Chandon, Kaiser Stuhl, Singapore Airlines, Qantas, Westpac Bank, Victorian College of Pharmacy, Bond Corporation, Kumagai Australia, Manafest Capital, Northern Territory Tourist Commission.
Prizes: Norman’s Victorian Arts Society Prize 1969, First Prize Sydney Royal Easter Show 1995, Liverpool City Council Prize 1998, Highly Commended North Sydney Art Prize 1999, Very Highly Commended, Drummoyne City Arts Society 1998, Singleton Art Prize Highly Commended 2002, Warringah Art Prize Highly Commended 2014
I am an Abstract Impressionist.
As a primary school kid I was always drawing. In secondary school my art teacher was great Australian artist Ian Bow. ‘Bowie’ was definitely my first important influence in aesthetics, art for art’s sake and [post] impressionism. The skill he developed in my painting and together with this knowledge of art’s power, won me a place at RMIT University. Art School.
RMIT-So many wonderful teachers -many great and famous names. Giant among even them was great Australian Impressionist William [Jock] Frater who set my brush style and access to aerial perspective which I will die with.
I graduated in Painting and Illustration and proceeded to establish and endure as an elite Illustrator, Award Winning, Exhibiting Painter/Graphic designer/art and film director.
Now some decades later having drawn and painted the 10,000 things, I find the commercial modes of my creative life have stepped aside and deferred to the Fine art exhibiting Impressionist painting stream. And really it’s about time.
I am an Abstract Impressionist. Impressionist because that is what was given to me by Bow and Frater and Abstract because of what the Quantum physicists have but recently discovered and shared with us.
i.e. Despite the most scientifically, intense and miniscule exploration of the Quantum Field no actual matter can be found – just waves of…….. energy. Ergo Nothing exists. Life is but a dream -a thought. [I knew it. I always knew this.] All is only one. Oneself is not just a part of the quantum filed [Universe], one is the entire quantum field itself.
Oneself [‘you’ dear reader] is, in reality the One Mind-Omniscient Primary Creator. Nothing and no other’ is outside the Oneself. Oneself but has to ask and one becomes or is provided. Oneself is all that is.
So it follows that a representational artist is inevitably engaged in pointless delusion in the rendition or depiction [of the 10,000]things. Hence the 20th Century introduction of Abstract Art, Cubism etc.
So latterly, as an Abstract Impressionist searching within and without for a painting subject I stay alert to the occurrence of pure graphic harmonious, arrangements, whilst pretty well totally ignoring the ‘sentimental’ lyric before me. e.g ‘Pet Puppy’ or ‘Princess’.
I choose a subject [picture] with no concern for the names and or functions of any of the subject elements in a picture. Rather I employ visible ‘objects’ purely as agents and conveyers of profile, mass, tone and colour in visually ‘harmonious’ displacement. I walk the fine line- the sweet spot between abstract vision and representational sight, completing my pictures upside down on the easel-ensuring no compromise of the ‘abstract design’ in the pursuit of accurate literal rendering.
I am an Abstract Impressionist.
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