By KRYSTINE KRZYWOKULSKI
IN 1966 Ted Krzywokulski, of Emerald, was studying art at Caulfield Institute of Technology, now Monash.
With the onset of the Vietnam War, Ted was conscripted into the armed forces and was sent to Vietnam.
His brother, John, also a student, though conscripted was allowed to defer and continued his studies and is now a well-known, established Australian artist.
When Ted returned to civilian life, the Vietnam experience gave little incentive to return to art studies.
The need to grasp and comprehend a normal life dominated his psyche, resulting in the fundamental desire for marriage, a job, a home, children, and now grandchildren.
Normal wishes for most of us, but critical for one, and no doubt, most veterans later diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Once settled, Ted did return to his art, but it was intermittent, a hobby, with studio time seized in between the necessities of life.
However, time passes, children and grandchildren grow up and factors change, and Ted found more time to pursue his original vocation, to pursue his art.
With encouragement from his family and friends, and in particular from his friend Arvy Kras, who owns an art gallery in Olinda, he tackled the world of painting seriously, a step that clearly was essential in healing the memories of Vietnam.
In a mammoth effort, Ted has produced over 25 paintings, which will be exhibited at Arvy’s Art Gallery in Olinda from Friday, 13 November, with the official opening being held on Sunday, 15 November, at 2pm.
The exhibition will be on display for four weeks.
So what is Ted offering the viewer?
Ted claims ‘no concept or theme in my art’.
This conjures up the theory of ‘abstraction’ and indeed audiences are confronted with abstract works, despite the allusive hint of figuration.
Ted is a painter of subjectivity.
Feeling is evoked through the empathy for medium, form, shape, line, colour and texture.
Colours are mostly earthy ochres and creams, set against a garnet of brilliant red or a slash of black, and sometimes a surprisingly deep blue.
Subtle manipulations of tones contrast with bold forms that should compete with the primordial graphic lines, yet reside with mutual respect. Lines are often incised into his surfaces, a homage to man’s earliest recorded marks.
Ted’s paintings have an imposing simplicity, but a monumental demeanour.
If there was a fundamental philosophy to Ted’s aims, it is that he is faithful to the primordial urge of man to make and leave his mark.
These paintings are tablets recording time, the bygone and the now.
Despite a 50-year hiatus, Ted has caught up quickly, replacing trauma with peace and fulfilment in his paintings.
