Take Pablo Picasso’s cubist works and marry them with the vivid, expansive landscapes of Lawren Harris: That’s as good a starting point as any to describe the latest exhibit on offer at the Halifax Public Library. On the fifth floor of the Halifax Central Library, you’ll find a free, month-long showcase of Belleville, NS artist John Bladek’s work. A blend of self-described “geometric landscapes” and “fish figments,” it offers a glimpse not just of Nova Scotia’s unique beauty, but also the rest of Canada.
Trained at the Alberta University of the Arts, Bladek has hosted solo exhibitions of his oil paintings in Port Hawkesbury, Annapolis Royal, Kentville and Calgary. It’s an exacting sort of magic you’ll find in his work: While it’s all crisp lines and sharp angles, none of it is painted with masks or rulers, or even traced ahead of time—instead, Bladek paints everything freehand.
“I enjoy the mental and technical challenge,” he writes on his website. “All scenes must be disassembled and reassembled in my mind prior to starting the painting.”
The Coast spoke with Bladek about his work and its inspiration:
TC: What inspired your “geometric landscapes” series?
JB: I hadn’t painted for a long, long time. I had picked up a paintbrush a little bit in high school art class and enjoyed it. I kept all my paints. I travelled around, lived in various locations in Canada. When I took up painting again in 2015, I just started experimenting; I wanted to handle a brush again. I started painting different shapes, just to get used to mixing the paint and everything.
I thought, well, ‘I wonder if I could actually just use shapes and form them into a way that you could actually have a recognizable [landscape]? Can I make a recognizable scene out of just shapes?’ It’s evolved since then.
How do you choose your subjects? Are these all places you’ve photographed?
I only paint places I’ve actually been.
You mention Lawren Harris being an early source of inspiration on your website. That influence certainly shines through. What is it about Harris’ work that spoke to you as a high schooler—and maybe still does?
It’s the simplicity of the landscape. I think that’s really what I like about them—other than the incredible technique and just how powerful they are. It’s the simplicity of the forms.
Many of your pieces depict scenes in Nova Scotia—from the Bluenose to Mahone Bay to Cape Forchu. Is there a place you could paint over and over again?
Lots of places. I’ve done quite a few of Peggys Cove already. I’m doing a larger one of Cape Breton—just one picture I took of a fishing boat in Cape Breton. [I’m happy to] do multiple paintings of the same scene, because [the end result is] all so different. They may not look all that different to most people, but they’re all quite different to me.
Every painting I do has some changes, some little variations or something I’ve experimented on. I figure I can keep with this style for a long, long time, because I’ll never get bored of it. Every painting, I’m trying another colour—this colour on that colour—or trying something with the lines.
This article appears in Jul 1-31, 2023.