August 22 - September 14, 2024
MAKE BELIEVE
One’s first association with the term ‘make believe’ is usually that of imaginative child’s play. A scenario where everyone agrees to fabricated parameters as reality; for joy, narrative, and entertainment. The nonliteral behaviour of sword fights and fairy spells is innocent and open ended. There is however, a tipping point where make believe enters into the fixed and structured idea of adulthood, where the sweetness of pretending turns into a wilful denial, ignorance and an opportunity to project pseudo-perfection. This murky place of performative life, where heightened expectations colour experience is where Waldemar Kolbusz’s Make Believe resides.
There are few activities more aspirational than travel. The cultural capital of being well-travelled is heightened in an online ecosystem where holiday experiences become voyeuristic fodder for pleasure, comparison or judgement. Kolbusz’s Make Believe exhibition is inspired by luxury tourism and the artificial expectations it can create. How the preconceived anticipation of an experience can alter the end result. Compositionally this body of work references the artist’s own travels to locations that are visited for their idyllic nature. The geographically disconnected destinations are sought for their perfection, which Kolbusz asserts are perceived perfunctorily in actuality. These paintings offer a glimpse behind the superficial façade of place and expectation. There is no question that you are transported to a luscious destination standing before these large-scale images on canvas, but the glamour and escapism are underscored with his unique visual hyperbole.
The water in these paintings is paradoxical in nature. Idealised reflected landscapes sit above impossibly murky depths. As can be seen in Briefly and Position there is a frivolity of light bouncing off a pool’s surface which is directly contrasted with abyss like caverns of their unseen floors. Kolbusz creates an illusion that there may be no end to a dive in these waters. Imagery of a bright resort quickly descending into sullen unknown aligns with the duality of make believe. – A sense of wonder which succumbs to an imperfect reality.
Kolbusz showcases a gutsy, unapologetic use of colour. Pops of neon and creamy peaches sit with dissonance against lively greens, visceral magentas and candy grape hues. The palette is unconventional but seductive, his combinations produced with such bravado that they are willed to intoxicate and excite in their idiosyncrasies. The painted surface is a layered interplay of varied opacities, from solid swathes to translucent washes. At times it’s as though Kolbusz is deliberately obscuring your view with cellophane-like filters, forcing your viewpoint and mood through a painted colourful fog. In this way Kolbusz intervenes within his paintings to both expose and impose a type of idealism, by asserting a way to experience the world. There is a visual and metaphorical tussle between a perceived reality and actuality. Perfection and fantasy can be found in the serendipitous, accidental marks of paint, and deliberate, calculated compositions. Make Believe questions if the narrator of reality is reliable and if that narrator might be Kolbusz, or you.