Artistic Influences

26.04.2011

An apprentice artist 500 years ago would have been influenced by his master. Unless he lived by the sea he wouldn’t have ventured outside a 20 km radius and wouldn’t have seen any museums. Art books were few, with pathetic illustrations. His development was linear, rough, inadequate. Yet some masterpieces survived. My development is determined by greater levels of visual exposure, availability of artistic information and improved curatorial education. I have been influenced by hundreds of artists. I look at Canaletto to see how he handles crowds and the individual in them. At Hieronimus Bosch for mastering a multitude of focal points. At Gaudy for architectural relief. At Dali for metaphysical invention. At De Chirico for the weird and gothic. At  Repin for the freezing of emotions. At Depero for style and décor. At Dobell for characterization. At Tadema for compositional perfection.

ART IS.......

20.04.2011

Art is…

Magie, magic, illusion, transport, dream, vision.
It can be occult, intriguing, inscrutable, skillful, enviable, stirring. If it’s nothing of the above, go the next one and pity the time-waste.

Don’t give up on finding genius.

ART

19.04.2011

Art is…
For some, art is the rendering of an unplucked dead pheasant amid some fruit and flowers. Life-like and realistic feathers, an orgy of details. There are millions of collectors of such still life pictures.
I had a still life artist whose life was stilled as he painted a still life…

Paradox

18.04.2011

Ian Thorpe may be three times faster a swimmer than his coach… So why does he need him? Does he need a nag in order to win gold? As they say “those who can’t –teach!”. Quite a paradox.

So why does a torpedo need a push?

As a painter, I still miss some of my teachers comments and coaching. Since they’re not around, I register the input by sundry visitors to my studio. I’m often amazed at how much they influence my work, and how the painting benefits from laymen paintings.

REPENTANCE

17.04.2011

Repentance is free! Yet it does remedy a lot of traumas and detoxes your conscience. Many wait for their death throes to repent. Too late! Do it right now. Do it to all you ought to repent to.

Doing it to some will be painful, particularly to the ones you think ought to apologize to you!

They even might…if you do it first.

Utopia

20.03.2011

After generations since the collapse of Russian Communist Imperialism I have given the word utopia another look.  I tell you it’s possible!

Utopia will happen unannounced.  You can’t design utopia… the designers would kill it at birth.

Freedom from hunger in the world is just around the corner.  That’s utopia!

Constitutional global peace will be ours in 30 years.  That’s utopia!

The free market within sensible social parameters – that’s utopian prosperity in 20 years.

Disease and early death will be gone in 10 years.  That’s utopia!

We will, afterall, save the planet… that’s utopia!

THOUGHT OF THE DAY

25.02.2011

"The logic of surviving old age is that you enter, at 76, a sort of renaissance, which is mirrored in my youthful, ground-breaking, avant guard latest work. Back to the future!"

Australia Day

24.01.2011

I came to this country Australia as a stateless political migrant fleeing from the Evil Empire behind the Iron Curtain and was immediately astonished by the level of freedom, stability, prosperity and happiness.

Our spirit of Australianity has delivered us many blessings. One is a very strong economy, because the spirit is to all of us an inspiration to work hard and achieve. And our economy delivers help to the needy in this country, now affected by natural disasters, and our reserves and generosity still extend to many other worthwhile causes round the world.

Australia is a model example of tolerance and integration - of Indigenous Australians, the true custodians, who came here in the dreamtime some 40,000 years ago; the first settlers and their offspring, who came here some 10 generations ago; and migrants from some 100 different countries the world over who came 40 years ago and even the really new Australians who arrived 40 hours ago!

The overwhelming majority of our population feels a strong sense of being Australian - a concept that transcends simple patriotism. It is almost a philosophical passion, even stronger than the one uniting the people of our cousin country the US. We are the best example of cohesive solidarity and brotherhood in the world.

Happy Australia Day!

Charles Billich

A MESSAGE FOR 2011

09.01.2011

Looking at the encouraging and positive records and trends in gradual disarmaments and reduction of bellicosity, we are forced to conclude we are inexorably moving towards a war-free world.

In a few generations the young inhabitants of the globe will be bemused by the ways of their forefathers, by a past world populated by barbarians who fought among themselves, their unimaginative leaders simplistically resorting to conflict for resolving differences and brutality and violence to steal others territories.

Being an optimist and a pacifist, I am dreaming of a world devoid of armies and WMDs. I reflect upon the remaining and, by the way, ever dwindling armed forces around the world, as the precursors of a different Earth, where ultimately leaders will be held accountable for initiating aggressive action and responsible for maintaining the peace.

In bygone days, yet merely a short lifetime ago, Australia had millions in the Forces. Isn't it a good sign our soldiers are now just a few thousands? They are dedicated, efficient, educated and, yes, heroic. Yet in their hearts they dream of a world that won't need them anymore!

In a humble effort to tell pictorially the widows and children of fallen soldiers that their dear ones died for a good cause - world peace - I have created this visual Memory of their valour in Afghanistan.

I have painted traumatic episodes in my life before. But I have not travelled  to the Afghan war zones, so I had to blend previous experience with re-enactments at Holsworthy Army Camp and fervid imagination and recall to come up with my emblematic vision of strategic action.

Unexpected was my reward!....An Honourary Rank, complete with framed uniform! It certainly was the best Christmas present I ever received and am still humbled by it and quite emotional.

It's a memento I will always relate and refer to, even in times of lasting, even eternal peace.

I wish the widows, children and families of our heroic Fallen a Happy and peaceful New Year.

And I extend love and best wishes to all my friends (even others) around the world.

Charles Billich

Welcome to the Billich Family!

07.01.2011

I have always reprimanded myself for being an average father, an eccentric and egocentric absentee. But I also had the sense that I was related to a broader humanity other than my children Jonathan, Jane and Eliza...now in their forties!

Chronologically I could be a great-grandfather to most of you, and as such perhaps a tad more useful.

But if you prefer to see me as a father figure I must warn you that I am not as much an affectionate sop as a teacher trying to communicate  to you about common values, timeless standards, aesthetic equilibriums and artistic integrity.

From time to time I want to talk to you about art, about the importance of being able to distinguish between the irrelevant and the precious, about the loony radical and the creatively intelligent, about the fine line between the hysterical and the inspiring, the hoodwink and the sincere, the truly free spirits and the pretentious anarchic.

As I get older I can focus a lot better on the past, whilst seeing further into the future.

My mum and dad, way back in the nineteenthirties, secured the ultimate luxury, a radio encased in an exquisite laminated timber casing. I thought that progress can go no further, even though I was reading science fiction books full of lunatic predictions.

Can you imagine my wonder at modern technology that enables me to stay in touch  with the whole world,  to have a minute by minute discourse with my broad, global family! A miracle, gush gush, I can't take for granted.

When I was a boy I though linking was about dancing with my cousin. Today I can link with unknown yet potentially even more affectionate family members,  clans I didn't know about and hostile tribes which now look for rapprochement  and peace!

Charles Billich

There are many things you can do with a woman...

05.01.2011

You can love her, explore her, exploit her, serve her,  unnerve her, elate her, depilate her, thrill her, possess her , amuse her, bemuse her, doubt her or

TURN HER INTO A PAINTING!

Charles Billich

Three Gorges

26.12.2010

There's a great thrill in visiting a foreign country and an orgasmic moment when you visit a location you have seen in your dreams.
 
Such was my experience when I visited remote villages in the Three Gorges area of Hubei, where I sketched away perched on rocks by  tributaries of the Yangtze River. Where I included personages that came right out of time warps.

Where you establish friendships with ethnic villagers and pretty maidens who sing sweet songs for you.

Where you feel so small and unobtrusive, walled in by gigantic canyons, drowned in a mist that mistifyes and transports you to a romantic world you thought the world forgot...

Charles Billich