Roger Ballen Outland (Series) Silver Gelatin Print
Roger Ballen Shadow Chamber (Series) Silver Gelatin Print
Roger Ballen Boarding House (Series) Silver Gelatin Print
Roger Ballen Boarding House (Series) Silver Gelatin Print
Roger Ballen Boarding House (Series) Silver Gelatin PrintBio
Roger Ballen is a South African photographer working exclusively in black and white film processes. Ballen's work is infused with a documentary-like style, however, also portrays the balance between realism and theatrics, living and inanimate, humans and animals. Ballen's use of carefully arranged objects allows the viewer to place the human existence within the environment without the presence of a human subject. He is a master of human psychology and portrays the depths of the mind through collaboration and directing, documenting and sculpting environments. The most recent series becomes increasingly tableau, including elements of sculpture, and increasing theatrical ambiguity. In a lot of ways, Ballen's process reminds me of Zoe Beloff's, like the blur between documenting and projecting. Ballen is represented in Johannesburg and worldwide.
Quotations
" The artist intends these miniature blasted landscapes to represent a psychological state dwelling somewhere within all of us. His descriptive precision, image to image, makes that claim to universality more plausible than most made by artists. "
Sholis, Brian. "Roger Ballen, Gagosian Gallery" Artforum. Feb 2010. Accessed 15 Nov 2010. <>
"The art of Roger Ballen is impossible to forget. It goes deep. Gets at places we didn’t know were there. Maybe hoped weren't there. It makes us wild. It opens us up to those uncertain, shocking and frighteningly banal aspects of the waking dream, twitching between animal and human, the clean and the unclean, the animate and the inanimate, the lived and the imagined, the natural and the performed."
Cook, Robert. "Robert Ballen.com Introduction" RobertBallen.com. Accessed 15 Nov 2010. <>
Relates
The work of Roger Ballen relates to my work through his use of animal imagery to represent, qualify, implicate or contextualize the human condition. All of his photographs contain a human presence, whether or not a human actually exists within the frame. Ballen's use of animals is one of the tools he uses to describe the human psychological condition. I feel my work is getting at this, through a more scientific approach. My images are meant to place humans into the scope of the evolving planet in a truthful, but also performative way. Ballen's environments in which he is contextualizing are much more confined than mine, however, my concepts sometimes deal with confinement in an evolutionary context. His methods of portraying humans without the presence of human subjects is very interesting and inspiring for me, and I hope to achieve this in my future work.
Interview
The work of Roger Ballen relates to my work through his use of animal imagery to represent, qualify, implicate or contextualize the human condition. All of his photographs contain a human presence, whether or not a human actually exists within the frame. Ballen's use of animals is one of the tools he uses to describe the human psychological condition. I feel my work is getting at this, through a more scientific approach. My images are meant to place humans into the scope of the evolving planet in a truthful, but also performative way. Ballen's environments in which he is contextualizing are much more confined than mine, however, my concepts sometimes deal with confinement in an evolutionary context. His methods of portraying humans without the presence of human subjects is very interesting and inspiring for me, and I hope to achieve this in my future work.
Interview
Gagosian Gallery
http://www.gagosian.com/artists/roger-ballen/
Website
http://www.rogerballen.com/
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