Joe Blundell http://www.joeblundellart.com/
Melbourne, Australia
I’m the son of an architect and so I guess a love of buildings is in my DNA. Maybe I’m a frustrated architect, who knows, but the truth is I’ve always been spellbound by buildings and how they stand with the changing light. There’s a lot of old and new in conventional landscape scenery – you can see new grass living under a 300 year old tree. Somehow the old and the new always blend together. It’s the aesthetics of nature. However, with urban landscapes the old and the new are often tangled together, awkwardly, dramatically and beautifully. It’s a defining feature of the urban landscape for most cities. There’s great beauty in Melbourne and a strong sense on the passage of time. My series of paintings of Melbourne are about the passage of time, and a distillation of how I experience the city visually – my unique take on it if you will. In my work, I’ve celebrated the settling together of old and new objects. I’ve expressed the city at a particular time of day – dusk. It’s a certain type of light that typifies Melbourne for me. It’s when that powerful Australian sun is softened and then thrown down – bouncing off buildings, trams and coming to rest scattered on the roads and pavements. Every artist sees things in their own way. Anyone who has had the privilege of standing in front of one of Monet’s haystack paintings will probably never look at light and shadow in the same way again. That’s art. People sometimes send me pictures of things they’ve seen that remind them of my paintings. I love that. They get what I see.
Mr. Blundell has successfully written the preceding artist statement. It is successful because he kept it short, under three hundred words. His first sentence makes one want the read more. Hints of his personality and unmistakable enthusiasm are evident, but one immediately understands the why of his work. Blundell’s straightforward writing seems to come from his heart and makes the reader a sense of being involved engaged in a conversation with him. He writes in the first person which makes him more real to the reader. He does not attempt to describe his work or give his complete resume. It is simple, readable and he does not confuse the reader with art speak.
Very limited rewording for clarity is in the following version.
I’m the son of an architect and so I guess a love of buildings is in my DNA. Who knows? Maybe I’m a frustrated architect, but the truth is I’ve always been spellbound by buildings and how they stand with the changing light. There’s a lot of old and new in conventional landscape scenery. You can see new grass living under a 300-year-old tree. Somehow the old and the new always blend together. It’s the aesthetics of nature. However, with urban landscapes the old and the new are often tangled together, awkwardly, dramatically and beautifully. It’s a defining feature of the urban landscape for most cities. There’s great beauty in Melbourne and a strong sense on the passage of time. My series of paintings of Melbourne are about the passage of time, and a distillation of how I experience the city visually. In my work, I’ve celebrated the settling together of old and new objects. I’ve expressed the city at dusk. It’s a certain type of light that typifies Melbourne. for For me, it’s when that powerful Australian sun is softened, thrown down, bouncing off buildings, trams and coming to rest scattered on the pavements. Every artist sees things in their own way. Anyone who has had the privilege of standing in front of one of Monet’s haystack paintings will probably never look at light and shadow in the same way again. That’s art. People sometimes send me pictures of things they’ve seen that remind them of my paintings. I love that. They get what I see.