Artist Statement

I strive to keep my life simple, from how I furnish my living space to how I handle my finances, even with how I deal with people. I feel that avoiding unnecessary details and complications allows me to focus better on what’s important in life. As such, I would consider myself to be a “no BS” person - who has the time?
Perhaps that is why I quickly developed my “geometric” style of landscape painting, perhaps not. I don’t worry about the reasons, to me those are just more unnecessary details. There is no “message” in my style, no deep hidden meaning. If I was asked to explain why I paint the way I do I would simply say “it looks cool and it’s different”. I could come up with a long flowery explanation that would make your head spin but in the end, those perceptive enough, and especially those who have met me in person, would see that it was just smoke and mirrors and I’ve already stated that I consider myself to be a “no BS” person. Although difficult to produce and complex in it’s own way, I am just offering a simpler visual interpretation of an everyday scene.

Biography

John Bladek is an emerging artist who has developed a unique style of oil painting which he calls “geometric”. Born and raised in Toronto, Ontario, John’s first exposure to oil painting was in a grade 12 art class where he was influenced by the work of Group of Seven artist Lawren Harris. With university degrees in geology and geography John moved to Calgary and worked as a self-employed geological consultant in the oil and gas industry for 25 years before retiring to southern Nova Scotia. Although he had a keen interest in art, and was an art collector, John created only 3 paintings in almost 40 years after that first art class. At the suggestion of a friend, who saw one of his earlier paintings, he took up painting again in late 2015 and a year after that he developed his unique style.