Page 73 - The Venice Biennale 2001 issue of World of Art Magazine

ARTisTic pROfiLe JR bALLARD /USA

muses me when I am referred he was out of control and water was images in to the water that I had not
to as a “master of watercolor.” coming, up in a big flood that could not originally intended.
Th
It at always evokes the image be stopped. And as an artist, your well Many viewers of my work see faces
of myself as Mickey Mouse in Fantasia. know there is such a contrivance for and objects that I don’t know are
I saw this movie in South America watercolorists called a mop hush. As there. I work so diligently to, execute
with my mother. I was very young. The the apprentice to a Master Magician, the composition, only to find there
character of Mickey Mouse was as an Mickey Mouse was “in training.” Like are things in the painting not made
apprentice to the Master Magician. As this character I train constantly, seeking by my hand.
an apprentice, Mickey Mouse carried searching, learning what to do with the One could define my work as figurative,
a big mop. Then, one time he tried to water. And like the apprentice to but “object recognition” may he better
do what the Magician did, hut he used life that I am, my master magician suited, since much the painting is
his mop as a wand. And then found works through me, oftentimes painting abstracted. It is very swish, juicy, floods
of moving, paint that shape and form
The finAL cOming, 1998 WATErcolor, TExT And collAgE, In. 51 x 35 / cM. 130 x 89 live in, While earlier works were of
singular object, placing the viewer in
the perspective of an ant or a bee’s eye
view, the later works tend to have a sort
of a “magical realism” which forms a
narrative, and to which scribbling or
writing goes into them. There is a sense
of playfulness as bout the paintings,
because I like humor. In the painting
The Final Coming, I referred to the
poem by W.B.Yeats, and said that the
animals used were endanger species,
except for the serpent. The animals were
indeed an endangered species, and all
the animals that are endangered I try
to use in my paintings where they are
apropos. The serpents in my paintings,
and there are two more in progress,
are ancient glyphs for cosmic, and vital
electricity. So this age we have begun is an
age of this electricity. In this usage, I am
addressing another language, a hidden
language, one that is encased in figures
recognizable to the collective.
The work that I was doing before
this was in Social Work, working with
teenagers and using art as a tool for
self-awareness. So I knew a little bit
about the unconscious, which in my
paintings is an analogy for water. I was
tempted to take a degree in Art Therapy,
and I would say that this was “my last
temptation.” A life crisis occurred and
it was then that I committed myself
to some talents still buried in me. Of
course I made a joke on myself. I asked
myself “what would I do if I had only
five years or less to live? I answered to
myself that I would do art. At that time
I was green behind my ears about the
art field I am now involved with and
it is evident that those parenthetical
“five years” have been greatly extended.
What seemed to happen was that having
given “purpose a critical situation,
invoked a force that moved me forward
along my way, and my life took on a new
meaning. All artists have this force and it
pours into their art form.
cOnTAcT ART ADDicTiOn OR The ARTisT if yOu’D Like mORe infORmATiOn info@artaddiction.se
Jr Ballard / 8265 kingsbrook no. 248, Houston, Texas 77024 USA +1 713 467-0673 e-mail: jrb773@hal-pc.org WORLD of ART 71