King Edward VII School Old Boy, Paul Blomkamp (Class of 1966) will be holding a Solo Art Exhibition, ‘Smaller Works- The True Electric Essence’ on the 2 November at Gallery 360 in Bryanston, Johannesburg.

At the age of 19, Blomkamp was awarded the commission to make one of the (then) largest Stained Glass windows in the world. Although primarily a painter, Blomkamp spent the following 20 years producing a spate of large, modern windows for churches, homes and large corporations. Since 1993, he has concentrated exclusively on his paintings.

2004 – 2008 The artist launched his new series of oils on paper, and continued to do privately commissioned works for corporate as well as domestic clients.

‘Highveld Windveld’ is the title of Johannesburg artist, Paul Blomkamp’s new oils on paper. They form part of an ongoing series of works, inspired by his profound, almost obsessive fascination with the Magaliesberg mountain range in Gauteng.

The influence of Blomkamp’s early stained glass windows is still evident in his latest paintings, which appear to transmit rather than reflect light. They have a transparency, clarity and sharpness akin to glass, and often appear to be made of coloured light rather than paint.

Blomkamp’s works deals with the anatomy of energy. He is preoccupied with energy, what it is, what it looks like, largely because of an illness that left him without energy of his own for many years.

Now his paintings are celebrations of energised lines, shapes and spaces that throb and glow with pure, strong colour, existing solely for ways to illuminate the dark and the unknown. His reason for painting, he says, it is to make the connection with that subconscious passion and energy that sustains us and that moves us as surely as the wind through a field of wheat’.

His relationships with colour and energised line is an attempt, he maintains, ‘to confront the subconscious, and to expose and bring into the light that mystery, that primal force, that may give us clues, affirmations – that existence on our little planet, spinning in this perplexing Cosmos, is worthwhile and meaningful, after all’.

2008/2009 – He started the planning and preparation for his first painting in the trilogy of exceptional visionaries whom he hoped would spearhead his mammoth project in the Karoo which is aimed at job creation for the previously disadvantaged.

2010 – 2013 – He completed the portraits of Oprah Winfrey and Nelson Mandela, thus completing the trilogy of the largest portraits ever painted by a South African Artist of these three great leaders.

Congratulations Paul on your illustrious career and we encourage the King Edward Community to please support our Old Boy at his solo exhibition.

KES OLD BOY PAUL BLOMKAMP ART EXHIBITION Invite.pdf