Demographic 1994

This experimental surrealist, postmodern, drawing and collage with an undercoat of white gesso with shadows painted in brush and ink, was completed in 1994. Patrick Hromas was still studying at the Canberra School of Art and Design, at the Australian National University, and his experiences of his time studying his major: Graphic Investigation was manifold. He was overjoyed to be able to study on a full time basis with fantastic tutors, such as the literati John Pratt, the earnest, insightful John Hardy, the caring, brilliant printmaker Dianne Fogwell, and the recipient of the French Legion of Honour, Czech born master printmaker and bookmaker, Petr Herel (dec. April 2022). However Patrick’s joy was overshadowed by recently being diagnosed after a brief psychotic episode, in the winter of 1993, whereupon his mother whisked him away from his studies in Canberra, Australia’s capital city to a doctor in Sydney’s North Shore. It took only 25 minutes for the doctor to diagnose him with schizophrenia and prescribe antipsychotic medication.

On the other hand, the artist took great delight in learning in depth about many French artists, not only from the definitive word on art history and contemporary art, a celebrated, man with a swagger in his step and an incurable fascination with the art world, David McNiel, but also the two Johns mentioned above. This stirred the wild imagination of the young art student. Not only were the artworks of fin-de-circle (his heroes) painters Henrí de Toulouse-Lautrec, Edgar Degas and Francis Picabia being analysed in his art history/art theory lessons every Wednesday morning, he also could feel their dreams and aspirations, spoken at length with his good friends (including the pianist/musician turned writer Ewan Battersby). There was also a formulation of a malevolent, spiritual entity, the Tyrant, comprised of a marriage of evil and technology, forming in his young mind. The flip side to this, was a benevolent, super ego (as coined by Professor Carl Jung), an entity comprised of a global spiritual equine being, he simply called “Equus”.

I leave it to your own imagination, dear viewers, to discern the iconography of this peculiar but utterly originally designed drawing on layered, found wallpaper, suffice to say that amongst the papers used in the construction of the collaged elements, we find a residue of the Hunters Hill home, in which the artist spent a childhood with his three sisters, in the pale blue wallpaper, a support for the twin, split pen and ink Horses.

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**News Flash**

One of Patrick’s surrealist portraits will be shown at:

Where: Braemar Gallery,
104 Macquarie Road
Springwood NSW 2777
When:
Gallery Opening Hours from 10am-4pm,
Wednesdays through to Sundays,
Exhibition Runs:
From Thursday 30th July to Sunday 30th August
Admission: Free
☎ Contact:
Email braemargallery@gmail.com or phone the Blue Mountains Cultural Centre on 02 4780 5410.
Webpage: https://www.bluemountainstheatre.com.au/braemar-house/what-s-on/braemar-gallery/
YouTube link:
https://youtube.com/shorts/fZhoIB7YRI8?si=55RiOQkvckO6l-XC

Also:

Currently two of Patrick's oil paintings have been selected for inclusion in OnArt Magazine, an online magazine, based in Italy:
2026: pages 118 - 119.
OnArt Magazine, Vol. One, Online art magazine, Pages: 118-119, Italian magazine: https://issuu.com/onartmag/docs/onart_vol._one/118?ff

**End News Flash**

If you're interested in a gift portrait of a friend, family member, dog or horse, for BLACK FRIDAY, please PM me or text me on 0415HROMAS. My rates for all beloved individuals are, (drawn or painted on A3 sized paper or canvas): $160 for black & white conté/pastel drawing, $220 for a coloured pastel drawing, $260 for a coloured oil painting, all from .jpegs, POSTAGE IS FREE in the cost for all artworks that are sized A3 (or smaller) and can be rolled up, to *all Australian Metropolitan Areas*, international postage extra. Don't delay! Thank you,
Patrick

Patrick Hromas, BA (Visual) 1996

I am a visual artist who was born in Sydney in 1973, and grew up in Hunters Hill. I have been making bespoke art ever since I remember, drawing the Hunters Hill Post Office when I was 13, “built in 1891 as designed by the government architect, Walter Liberty Vernon, in Queen Anne Style”. I graduated from the Canberra School of Art, Australian National University, in 1996. I enjoyed an enriching experience as a student exchange recipient with Ecole Nationalé Superieur des Beaux Artes for five months in 1995/6. I suffered from a mental health problem after being hospitalised in Nîmes in the South of France. Now that I have largely overcome that health issue, I draw in pastels or conté, paint in oil colours and occasionally watercolours.

I have shown my artworks in seven solo shows and 52 group exhibitions, as far west & north as London, United Kingdom, as far east as Bronte and far south as Acton the Australian Capital Territory. As a member of the Blue Mountains Community Arts Network, I was invited to exhibit my painting: “Macquarie Road (Why should you be different from other men? I am told that there is hardly a husband in London who does not waste his life over some shameful passion.)” in the group exhibition: Infinities of Blue, in the Fountain Court at Parliament House of New South Wales. Most notably, one of my hand printed, hand typeset artists books is in the collection of the Australian National University Library, Acton, ACT.

I adore to draw sitters’ portraits in pastel or conté generally from .jpegs, adding a background image from their favourite holiday happy snaps. Conté is a hard, waxy stick like crayon and is virtually indelible once applied to fine art paper. To enquire, please send me a message, via text to: +61 2 415HROMAS, the message service here or leave a voice message on my home number, +61 2 4751 8279.

I only use archival quality materials throughout my practice. I am also a committed eco-friendly artist.

I construct, using Photoshop, mock-ups for the my collages or oil paintings by scavenging imagery as a Postmodern surrealist, from a variety of sources. I then go about weaving the figures in the .jpeg image and further teasing out forms, colours and compositions, painting the final work from my iMac screen. Only when the balance between these elements and an even an absence or obscurification of image is reached so to let the eye rest, as instinct or aesthetics demand, is the painting complete.

“Patrick is an artist who truly loves what he does. He immerses himself in the world around him and ways to capture its joy, its pleasures and those moments that compose the passages of time. He also maintains a sense of the paint itself. The choice of media and colour are always so key in representing the artist’s world, but these choices and techniques also convey emotion and feeling, and that is what Patrick does with heart and depth. The colour blue is predominant in Patrick’s work, perhaps because he resides in the Blue Mountains and that dusky landscape inspires him. In art historical terms, the cobalt, ultramarine and light purple were also colours used by the Renaissance painters and they add a sense of light and calm to Patrick’s work.”
Anna Groden,
ANG Art Consulting.
(Email:
angartconsulting@gmail.com)

I hope to exhibit my work in a National art Prize, and hold further solo exhibitions in the Blue Mountains and Sydney. I have a number of drawings and paintings in the collection of individuals residing in Sydney, the Blue Mountains, the ACT, India and Japan.

All my paintings and drawings on stretcher bars that are not framed behind glass have 2 d-rings attached for larger artworks or 2 triangular rings attached securely, 12cm from the top of the artwork. My framed artworks larger than A2 size, have d-rings *and* a nylon chord or plastic coated wire for hanging. My artworks framed behind glass smaller than A2 have a nylon chord for hanging.

On Thursday, 11 November 2021, between 2PM and 3PM AEST (NSW) TIME, Patrick was interviewed by Toni Lontis on Radio Toni:
https://youtu.be/_7mR1OkrHx4

If you’ve tried calling me on my mobile, please feel free to call my home number 02 4751 8279 where you can also leave a message. I usually return home at 6:00PM.