EXHIBITION OPENS FRIDAY, 4TH OF SEPTEMBER WITH 21 WORKS. For details on works not available to view on the website, please contact the Art Gallery.
Brian Ballard
Born in Belfast, 1943.
Selected Group Exhibitions
1967 Butlin Foundation for Young Irish Artists, Arts Council Gallery, Belfast Duchas Exhibition, Queen’s University Gallery
1969 Seven North of Ireland Painters, David Hendrick’s Gallery, Dublin
Contemporary Irish Painting, Park Square gallery, Leeds and Glasgow
1970 David Hendrick’s Gallery, Dublin
1971 Art Spectrum, Ulster
1982 Listowel InternationalBiennale III
1989 Images of Mourne, Narrow Water Gallery, Warrenpoint
Salute to Turner, Thor Agnew and Sons, London
1990 Images from Ireland, Brussels
1998 Ansteys Galleries, Harrogate
1999 Art Miami
2000 Ireland Now, Messum’s, London
Cadogan Contemporary
2006 Royal Ulster Academy
2007 Royal Ulster Academy
Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin
Recent One Man Exhibitions
1999 Tristann Gallery, Dundalk
1999 Cadogan Contemporary, London
Solomon Gallery, Dublin
2001 Kennys Galway
2002 Cadogan Contemporary, London
Solomon Gallery, Dublin
2003 Henshelwood Gallery, Newcastle Upon Tyne
2004 Cadogan Contemporary, London
2005 Gormleys Fine Art , Omagh
2006 Kennys Galway
2007 Cavanacor, Lifford with Lisa Ballard
2007 Peppercanister, Dublin
2007 Barbara Stanley, London, with Lisa Ballard
2008 Cadogan Contemporary, London
2008 James Wray, Gallery, Belfast
2009 Peppercanister Gallery, Dublin
Selected Collections
Ulster Museum
Crawford Municipal Gallery, Cork
An Comhairle Ealaion
Arts Council of Northern Ireland
Great Southern Hotels
Haverty Trust
AIB
Saltzburg Seminar
National Trust
Ulster Telvision
Belfast Education and Library Board
Royal Bank of Scotland
Waterford Wedgwood plc
Conrad International Hotel
Irish Intercontinental Bank
Born in Belfast, Brian Ballard trained firstly at the College of Art, Belfast and then at the College of Art, Liverpool. He still lives in Belfast but spends long periods of time living and working in his house on the remote and rugged island of Inishfree off the coast of Donegal.
Brian Ballard enjoys painting and is constantly inspired by his response to the ordinary things, such as a vase of flowers, an old iron, a figure, a landscape, a model in his studio. He tends to work in intense bursts of creativity; surges of self-expression that often punctuate periods of restless inactivity. Once started, he may paint the same subject several times, a change of light, of weather, another viewpoint, a difference of scale or proportion of canvas being sufficient to prompt another exploration of the theme. The landscapes he paints are often harsh and untamed such as those off the coast of Donegal or Kerry. He paints the same scenes repeatedly in order to gain the confidence to express its many moods in paint. These landscapes are painted 'en plein air', in front of the subject.
Ballard prefers those moments when the sun infused the landscape with colour and chiaroscuro. Ballard is a rich colourist and is interested in the contrasting colours and textures in simple subjects. Painting directly onto the canvas with vigorous brushstrokes, he uses bold slashes of rich colour across a solid and heavily laden with fluid paint in which the bristles always leave their mark of speed and pressure, they are subject to a structural order, as well as a pictorial depth. He strives for balance in his work and his struggle is always centred on a concern to create a subtle harmony of colour and form, a search for the 'structure of a painting' and a desire to entice and lead the eye where he wants it to go.
Brian Ballard handles a paintbrush with confidence and a sense of purpose, suppressing details in order to capture an object in bold, decisive strokes. Ballard is concerned with the essence he sees in things. His subjects are always comfortable recognisable, but his treatment of them is invariably painterly and not an alternative to a photograph. He admires artists like Bonnard, Matisse, Picasso, who painted in hard strokes with courage and audacity; for this is his way.
