“Painting, like language, is not a progressive medium. Its vernacular changes over time, but its fundamental concerns will always assert themselves. The basic, the human, and the timeless find voice – as do the trivial, the vapid, and the passe – in painting, just as they do in language.” – from a note scribbled in 2003.
Author Archives: matt ballou
Transpositions Feature
My work has been featured on the Transpositions website.
Transpositions is a collaborative effort of students associated with the Institute for Theology, Imagination, and the Arts at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. The site has vibrant discussions going on among PhD students and post-graduate commentators (as well as contributors from around the globe) on a variety of topics. If you’re interested in the intersection of Art, Theology, and intellectual inquiry, I suggest you check them out.
She Travels
Talking About Tondos
Talk by Matthew Ballou at The 930 Art Center, June 10, 2011
I gave a talk at the 930 Art Center in Louisville, KY last week. If you’d like to listen to it (it’s only 16 minutes long), click above for the mp3 file. To see some of the work I was thinking about in this talk, click here.
FINALLY
Historic Diebenkorn exhibition, years in the making, will finally go up in Fort Worth in September 2011!
Here is the itinerary for the touring exhibition:
Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas
September 25, 2011–January 22, 2012
Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, California
February 26–May 27, 2012
Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
June 30–September 23, 2012
Who’s going with me!?
Also, here’s the catalog. I just ordered mine.
Inspiration: Sandra Ramos “The Mirror Poems”
Last week I was in Louisville, KY for my show at the 930 Art Center. While in town I took a drive to 21C, a contemporary art space situated in a posh hotel. 21C blew my mind, but there was one work in particular that I spent a good deal of time with: Sandra Ramos’ Unknown (The Mirror Poems – Toi Derricotte). The work, an installation of image and text on vinyl and using mirrors and inverted imagery, is very beautiful and evocative. Here are a few shots of the work in situ, but be sure to click the link above to learn more.
A few of my favorite lines:
“The eye in the mirror is the mirror of the eye.”
“If you ask it to show you the world it will show you the eye of your mother.”
If you get a chance to go to 21C, JUST GO DO IT.
I Keep Your Picture Close to Me
Let’s keep going, ok? These pictures have been in my wallet for about eight years. I take them out to show to students and friends. And I frequently look at them myself – so thankful and appreciative for who you are. I want to see how these pictures look in another eight years, and another eight after that, and after that. I love you, Alison.
*see little Miranda Grace Ballou’s first bow there? I keep that in there, too:)
And here’s the link to last year’s remembrance…
Pyramid Song, Summer 2001
“Alone in the cabin, two in the morning… “black-eyed angels swam”* in the murk, delivering tinkling songs of love and death to our sleeping ears” – from A Mnemonic of Longing, an unpublished essay, 2002-2009.
“It has taken me years to process this experience. It was something that could not be known in the moments of living it, only remembered as a fleeting figment seen with the mind’s eye, felt like a dream but never realized fully. It was all ashes and phantasm, crystallized cataracts in the eyes of understanding. To aim for understanding of the ethereal encounter – to know it, integrate it, and interpret it – is the essence of foolishness; its distance from this world is so far as to confound all reckoning.” – from A Mnemonic of Longing, an unpublished essay, 2002-2009.
Opening At 930 Art Center, Louisville, KY
My show with Tim Lowly at the 930 Art Center in Louisville, KY opened yesterday. It was a great event. Below I’m posting some general pictures.
1 ) The title wall with my piece “Seedbed #2”.
2 ) “Diviner” by Tim Lowly
3 ) General view of the gallery space.
4 ) General view with three of Lowly’s 39 inch diameter tondos near two of my smaller works.
5 ) General view of the backside of the gallery.
6 ) Two of my works.
7 ) A Detail of “Spinning” by Tim Lowly.
8 ) A shot of the crowd.
Also, after the artist talk/discussion that Tim and I led, we had two acts perform: the Sandpaper Dolls, and Tim’s Baby Mountain. Good stuff!
Alex, Ox-Bow Man and Boy of Summer
After Ox-Bow (3 months of glory, summer 2001), I made paintings of my friend Alex Herzog. Alex is amazing and I’m thankful for my long friendship with him. I present a few of the paintings below. Be sure to click for enlargement, and click Alex’s name for his website.
1) Alex Flipping Me Off At A Party, Acrylic on canvas, 10 by 8 inches, 2001.
2) Stihl, Acrylic on canvas, 10 by 8 inches, 2001.
3) Alex With A Streak Of Sunlight, Acrylic on canvas, 10 by 8 inches, 2001.
Also, here is a picture of him juicing.
…and a picture of him discussing art with me.
“did your rocket hit the box?” – ‘lex
“keep your station clean!” – ‘lex
eikonktizo 