South-African based photographer Roger Ballen is having an exhibition at the Stills Gallery in Paddington, Sydney. So we thought we would take a look at Ballens work and learn more about the man behind the images.
Although Ballen was born in New York in the 1950's, he has lived and worked in Johannesburg, South Africa since the 1970's. Where he has found the countries cultural and civil unrest as a source of inspiration for his work ever since. In his images Ballen has discovered that by manipulating the environments of his work and his use of subjects within them, he can create a unique atmosphere that simualtes the exact sentiments and emotions of the world that he is trying to represent. This blurring of fact and fiction was inspired, according to Ballen, by the American 'field painters' of the 60's and 70's, in which the use of an object or motif and background can be as expressive if not more than the human subject alone.
His current exhibition: 'Boarding House' works exactly on this theme, combining painting, theatre and sculpture in his images. In the exhibition Ballen forces his viewer to confront a primitive part of themselves in his depiction of this transient residence and the subjects alienation/ fight for survival within it.
Boarding House is being shown from 21 April to 29 May 2010, with the artist doing a talk in the gallery on 15 May. You can vist the website here.
Or vist Roger Ballens official site here.
