Blaz’s art dreams become reality

Blaz Delic, a 67-year-old Perth creative, is now an official exhibiting artist, sharing his years of creative inspiration with the Perth community with support from Rocky Bay’s Wishing Tree. 

Blaz’s exhibition, ‘The World Through My Eyes’, was on show for several weeks at the Victoria Park Centre for the Arts and included well over 30 unique paintings, three of which sold on opening night!

Blaz has been attending Rocky Bay’s Art Group at the Mosman Park hub every Monday for the past six years, but has been pouring his artistry onto paper and canvas since he was a seven year-old growing up in Croatia, and has honed a very unique style.  

Blaz combines childhood nostalgia – stories he’d been told and his own memories – with flora, fauna, and landscapes to create a Croatian folk tale style. His memory is sharp and he has many stories to tell through his art. 

“He is kind of like an outsider artist, he brings very honest art works out (on the canvas). You watch him and wonder how these creations come out of his brain. He hasn’t even studied art, he’s a self-taught painter,” says Rocky Bay Support Worker Meagan Bates, who works with Blaz and applied to the Wishing Tree on his behalf. 

The exhibition came about when Blaz expressed to Meagan his desire to one day hold a solo exhibition, which has been his life-long dream.  

“Blaz always tells me the backstories of all of his artworks. He explains a lot of what he’s doing which has been really interesting…I’ll sit with him and discuss his artwork,” says Meagan, who explains the Blaz is also an adept ceramicist. 

Meagan applied to the Wishing Tree – which is funded entirely through community donations and grants wishes for Rocky Bay customers when no other funding source is available – to help fund the expenses involved in the exhibition. 

With Blaz’s wish granted, Meagan set to work in supporting him to make his dreams of an exhibition a reality.  

“We talked about an exhibition for him for a long time and finally it came to fruition – it was a year and a half in the making.” 

An exhibiting artist in her own right and having previously worked at the Victoria Park Centre for the Arts teaching classes, Meagan knew the venue had great accessibility and always welcomed artists living with a disability.  

She also managed the hanging of Blaz’s work for the exhibition to help him tell his story through his work. 

“If he wanted to exhibit again, I’d be more than happy to help him – I’d love to work with Blaz.”