Paul Blomkamp

'Magaliesberg' (from the series)
60 x 60 cm
Acrylic on canvas

( #3 in the latest set of paintings)

After a lifetime of painting I am still amazed at how the sensations that fire in my brain while painting in the bright sun on a mountain find their way onto my canvas in blobs and streaks and drippings of paint. That mystery is surely what keeps me painting!
As long as the mountain floats and melts into the sky I am happy. As long as the air is full of colour and alive with trillions of dancing atoms I am happy.
As long as I paint I am happy.

'Magaliesberg' (from the series)
60 x 60 cm
Acrylic on canvas

After sitting very quietly on the mountain for a while, just looking, just sensing, something magical happens. The place suddenly reveals itself, unsolicited, emitting glowing waves of electric brightness. The mountains are rendered weightless by what seems a supernatural light.
Shapes float. Colours intensify.
Painting is a pursuit of securing these qualities on a canvas.
I do this with joy.

'Magaliesberg' (from the series)
60 x 60 cm
Acrylic on canvas

There's heat and dry grass and insects swirling in the bright dusty light. There's a fierce electricity sparking in the air.
I am sitting on a small Magaliesberg mountain painting the valley below and the mountain on the opposite side.
Alive!
I can hear the very air breathe.
The sensation is what I paint.

'The Man who made a Difference'
50 x 50 cm
Acrylic on canvas

Over the last few years I must have painted at least 30 of these Heads (from the 'Man Who...' series).
My Instagram friends who follow my work can see that my subject matter is very varied.
But it is these intrepid 'Men' who pop up consistently and insist on being represented on canvas. They have a quiet urgency about them, and every now and again stake their claim and exercise their right for a place in Existence.
I humbly obey!

# interior # southafricanart

'Highveld Quantumveld'
150 x 180 cm
Acrylic on canvas

I have a simple approach to painting complexity: just stand in front of a large white canvas and simply paint, hour upon hour, day after day, week after week with as much joy and freedom as I can muster.. until every last detail is perfecty in its place.
Rather than being intimidated by a blank expanse of virgin canvas I am enticed, seduced, excited by the promise and opportunity of making the invisible visible.
So a cold crisp day on the Highveld comes alive.. and I feel it a great privilege to unveil its secrets and codes of electric rhythms and flickering light.
Each blade of grass becomes a monument to light. I paint the crackle of electric currents.
I weave in and out. This is what i was born to do.

'the Man who stepped forward'
50 x 50 cm
Acrylic on canvas

Trying to keep the colours and shapes as clean and articulate as possible so that the message is put across simply and clearly.

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'QUANTUM POEM #2'
50 x 50 cm
Acrylic on canvas

(From the series: 7 Quantum Poems)

Within an hour, within a few seconds, thoughts can change from dull to bright..the mood from dark to light. So with these Quantum Poem paintings.
Things flicker in and out of existence. Tiny patterns of intelligence show themselves in a fraction of a flash. Thats what I want to capture.

'QUANTUM POEM #1'
50 x 50 cm
Acrylic on canvas

(From the series: 7 Quantum Poems)

Beyond words, colours are eloquent. These poems need no words to exist.. only for the colours to rhyme.

'QUANTUM POEM #4'
50 x 50 cm
Acrylic on canvas

(From the series: '7 Quantum poems)

If I close my eyes and remain very still and quiet I can see the atoms getting together and deciding on a plan to bring things into existence. Then I paint what I see. With great simplification.
And with colours that rhyme.

'QUANTUM POEM #6'
50 x 50 cm
Acrylic on canvas

(From the series: '7 Quantum Poems')

With this series of 7 paintings I set out to paint 7 poems. A poem in which the colours rhymed.

(From the series '7 Quantum poems')

'QUANTUM POEM #7'
50 x50 cm
Acrylic on canvas

What I've found over time
Is that
Colours rhyme

'Quantumveld'
150 x 180 cm
Acrylic on canvas

We see a place through pictures.
We feel a place through sensation.

The more I paint the less interested I am in presenting a picture of something and the more I'm interested in expressing the sensation that the place or object stirs in me.

So I'm driving ,fast, through the Magaliesberg mountains. The tall grass on the side of the road flash es past me. They rise up like antennae receiving messages from the all-knowing sky. Everything is potently electric. The air is crisp and cold. A small patch of warm light strives to break through.

This description falls short.. it is rather the sensation of the experience I'm after.
Thats why I paint.. the words are never enough.

'Energy Field (1)..Quantum Highveld'
180 x 140 cm
Acrylic on canvas

Making the invisible visible. Thats my job!
Expert assistance from Jennifer Spencer Christian 🙏

'QUANTUM MOON RISE'
45 x 45 cm
Painted wood sticks on board.

Work in progress.

'Quantum Moon Rise'
45 x 45 cm
Coloured wood sticks on board.

Just over 1000 coloured sticks meticulously painted, measured, cut and stuck to a board. Not bad for two large arthritic hands!
No gain without pain.
Not for the faint-hearted!

'The last Iceberg'
95 x 95 cm
Acrylic on canvas

'Wolf at the door'
100 x 120 cm
Acrylic on canvas

Whether we are fragile or robust the challenges come .. like waves in the sea.

'Quantum Code #1
50 x 50 cm
Acrylic on canvas

The challenge lies in painting what I can't see. I have no hi-tech instruments at my disposal. I know that billions, trillions of complex electrical transactions are taking place every second.. within me.. without me. I can humbly address these atomic celebrations through colour.. through painting.

The day Richard Branson met himself!

'Richard Branson .. the Electric Essence'
4.2 x 4.2 metres
Acrylic on 9 canvases

'We're all in this together'
Oil on paper
15 x 15 cm
From the series 'We're all in this together' (One of 15 images)

💥 Fine Art PRINTS available💥

Selection of 12 of my original paintings printed on museum quality paper in various sizes

Please contact Jen on 066 382 1857 ( whatsapp) or [email protected]
For further details on sizes and prices.

This is the 5th painting in the series 'Peace Talks' (Modern Cave paintings)

'The Man in the middle'
50 x 50 cm
Acrylic on canvas

How do we convert the dangerous road into the path of peace?
From my 'modern cave' I paint the situation before me. The mountains that have to be moved.
The eons of anger and mistrust that have to be quelled and soothed.
So I paint and paint and examine my heart.
Peace begins with us.
Peace depends on us.

Latest💥

The 4th painting in the series: PEACE TALKS (Modern Cave Paintings)

'A Festival of Differences'
50 x 50 cm
Acrylic on canvas
(Assisted by Jennifer Spencer Christian)

Working in the Stained glass medium for 25 years has left me with an affinity for using clear, bright sharp-edged shapes and colours in my paintings.
In my mind I imagine this little painting could be translated into a massive Stained glass window measuring 10 metres x 10 metres.
I imagine each shape cut from bright sheets of coloured glass.

3rd painting from the series 'PEACE TALKS' (modern cave paintings)

'Off the ground'
50 x 50 cm
Acrylic on canvas

Studying art at school (almost 60 years ago) left me with a love for ancient rock art (as in caves) and the highly formalized and stylized Egyptian tomb paintings.
60 years later their impact still makes a deep impression on me.
I challenge myself to come up with a fresh response to 'serious matters of the World'. This summarised approach satisfies my need to be visually succint, simple and boldly bright.

The man with a halo around his body appears in all 3 of the paintings. Peace talks need a man of light and vision. So I thought I would, of necissity, include him.

This has been my studio for the past 26 years. Warm and bright!
A room of light! A world within a world. Very grateful to work here everyday.

LATEST:

'Highveld Stormveld'
120 x 140 cm
Acrylic on canvas
2023

When finishing a painting some works demand more attention and scrutiny than others. The chance to just sit calmly and study each line, each spray of colour is priceless. The time to just sit and reflect.. to paint just another single extra line. To intensify a colour .. to subdue a tone.
This past Easter weekend has afforded me just that opportunity.
Just the chance to sit and look.

When I was a lot younger it was my dream to build and play a harpsichord. The clean crisp sound moved me. I never quite got around to it .. but working on this painting of a Highveld storm makes me feel I came close.
This is the electric play of choreographed atoms. I am part of that play.

'the Man who saw the Light'

50 x 50 cm
Acrylic on canvas

'the Man who saw Everything'

50 x 50 cm
Acrylic on canvas

A face is the servant to emotion.
This holds a fascination for me.
The blatancy of emotions! Their expressions lay us bare.
How, as an artist, can I extract the maximum emotion using the simplest of shapes and colours?
That gives me motive to explore my fellow man. Not their detailed anatomy.. but the unambiguous essence that lies beneath the mask.

(These heads continuously taunt me to keep creating them.)

Thanks to Jennifer Spencer Christian for her tireless assistance .. for her dedication to help produce technical perfection

'the Man who sought Solace'

50 x 50 cm
Acrylic on canvas

There is a favorite saying Jen and I have in the studio.
"It's not easy" (with a wry smile on our faces😏)
The pressures of modern living exact their toll. Such sadness and chaos abounds. Cruelty. Violence. The list goes on.
We bob up to the surface time after time.
We are weary yet optimistic Modern survivors.

The exhibition is now on.

At the Melrose Gallery in the ONE & ONLY Hotel Cape Town.
50 images of South Africa.
Reverse etching hand coloured relief prints.

This exhibition shows work from a collection of 50 personal images I have chosen to reflect the humble and often overlooked (and in some cases iconic) parts of South Africa.
This vast project began 25 years ago although the works on show were all generated in the last few months.
Each of the 50 images has an edition of 45.

Most of these places don't exist anymore. Long forgotten. But at one stage their owners must have been proud and optimistic.
My aim is to transform these often prosaic images into something bright and illuminated.
They are about the Architecture of light. The Architecture of hope.

0ver 100 works are on display.