Charles Blackman is one of Australia’s favourite iconic artists. An acute sense of emotional interplay between the viewer, the subject and the artist is at the centre of his artworks. He is particularly renowned for his rendition of feelings and the feminine, showing up and focusing on particularities of the most tender and complex emotions that are difficult to express in any other way. The silence and strength of love shows through these pictures, his windows into intimate reflections or dream like moments. Obviously the artist loved women and especially his daughter Christabel who became a wonderful companion for him in his studio. From a very early age she was model, assistant and apprentice. She would sit for hours posing on a wicker chair, zealously clean his paint brushes or take in his lessons about colour application. During a lifetime together, Christabel was given some of his artworks, which were treasured. She is sharing some of these at the Anthea Polson Art Gallery as a celebration of Art, Love and Collections.
Charles Blackman was a master of many mediums including oil painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture and etching. This exhibition lets us glimpse into his extraordinary ability as an artist to express himself in so many diverse ways. A seemingly limitless capacity to create new images from a bountiful vocabulary of ideas was his forte. During his ninety years, he worked relentlessly and poured so much of his own self into his pictures. He said “Art is five percent talent and ninety five percent hard work.” He would get up at 4 am to paint while it was quiet and be finished a days work in time to walk Christabel to school. This exhibition is a golden opportunity to peruse some of his strongest subject matters, many of his eras and almost all of his mediums as well. It takes us on a journey into the Blackman world of imagination and emotions, through vulnerabilities and strengths, simple line drawings and complex large oil paintings, we are presented with pictures that always beckon us to take a second look.
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