Matt Ballou: RANGE – Reception at William Woods University

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My exhibition – Matt Ballou: RANGE – is still up at William Woods University until December 16, 2012. I hope you can go see it if you haven’t yet. Below are some photos of the space, both after the installation and during the reception. I want to thank everyone who came out – friends, students (graduate and undergrad, current and former), and colleagues – and especially Jennifer Sain for her help in making the exhibition happen. Special thanks to Jane Mudd for encouraging William Woods to host this show.

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Installation, back on November 12, 2012.

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Three panoramas of the installed work.

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Two of my all-time favorite works… Locus #77 and #78

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Beautiful angles and shapes during the reception…

At the reception I gave a brief impromptu talk that led into some interesting questions from the audience and my own musing on the work.

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Me during my talk – Photo by Kevin Larson.

Click here to download the talk and Q+A session (42 MB MP3 format, 50 minutes long).

Some notes about the talk:

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Photo of me at the talk – Photo by Eric Norby.

Two New Catalogs

I’ve recently collected some bodies of work into small catalog format. The Lamentations 3 Series, from 2009-2011, and shown recently at Gordon College in Massachusetts, is collected along with images of the copper plates in process, some installation shots, and an essay that I gave as a lecture at Gordon during the opening for my show there. Click the image below for more info.

The second book is a collection of some of the 100 or so Locus Series works that I created between 1999 and 2001. I present about 20 images along with a short essay I wrote in 2001 when I concluded the series. I also wrote another short contemplation this year to reflect on what the Locus Series has meant to me. Click the image below for more info.

Lamentations 3 Series Complete

This weekend I printed and framed the last of the Lamentations 3 Series. I’ve talked about it before here, here, and here. It’s been a long journey: 20 months, lots of rocking on the mezzotint deck, the production of beautiful coppery glory, and a ton of revision. Tonight I pack them up for the trip to the Gordon College show. Here’s a preview of the last two, freshly finished (click for larger view… sorry, close up viewing is a little blurry; look for a super clear set of the whole 16 mezzotint series in a few months):

Lamentations 3, Verse 16

Lamentations 3, Verses 19-20

Almost Done…

Just two more mezzotints to print in the Lamentations 3:1-20 series. One is entirely complete while the other is 2/3 done. I expect I’ll be printing them by Tuesday. It’s been epic and challenging working on this series for the last 16 months. In some ways the works are so far outside of my instincts… in others they’re right in line with my sensibilities. I am super excited to see them up in just a few weeks at Gordon College. I’ll post images…

Coyolxauhqui and Me

Above is the awesome stone relief featuring Coyolxauhqui. Check out her story about embarrassment and dismemberment here.

Below is my mezzotint print illustrating Lamentations 3, Verses 10 and 11.

I was inspired by Coyolxauhqui’s stone disk and tried to give my piece some of the energy of that image of the ancient Aztec goddess of the Moon.

This piece and 15 others based on Lamentations 3, Verses 1 through 26 (as well as drawings and paintings of other subjects) will appear in my solo show at Gordon College in Massachusetts this February and March.

New Lamentations Mezzotints on the Way

I’ve got a show coming up next Spring at Gordon College in Wenham, MA. Though I’ll be presenting 50 or more works, a good portion of them will consist of mezzotint prints. I’m well on my way to completing the group I want to exhibit; the prints will follow the imagery from Lamentations chapter 3, verses 1 – 20. Below I’m posting some shots of the newer plates – click the title to read the verse.

Verse 1

Verse 7

Verse 9

Lamentations Series Continuing On

I’ve been continuing work on the Lamentations 3 series – see the latest work below (and an earlier note here). You can see one of the other paintings in the series here.

You can probably see that I am referencing Arnold Bocklin‘s famous painting Isle of the Dead – which he recreated many times – in this work. The connotations it carries with it seemed like a good basis upon with to embed my own reference and image.

I am also pulling from Nerdrum‘s recurring figure of alienation, seen in his Man in an Abandoned Landscape and Iron Law (center, distance).

Lamentations 3

lamentations 3 verse 5

i’m going to be starting a series of prints devoted to the biblical book of lamentations, chapter 3, verses 1 through 20. i’ve wanted to make a specifically biblical body of work over the last few years. i wanted an unconventional text and this is it. check it out here.

the final project will be entirely prints, with a portion of the edition bound together as artist books.