Mike Ballard

Born 1972, London. Lives and works in London. Recent shows include: ‘Gutter Snipe’ at The Bomb Factory Art foundation, ‘Adapt the collapse’ Union Gallery London, Royal Academy summer exhibition 2018, 2020 winner of the Jack Goldsmith award for Sculpture, KARST Projects Plymouth. "My work is inspired by the abstract compositions found in the urban environment, and the territorial gestures that divide public and private space. I am fascinated by the visual noise that the City’s infrastructure presents. The textural qualities in my paintings are the result of sequences of individual processes layered together to emulate the effect of time – weathering. The entropic state of the city is found in the margins, in the unmaintained and uninhabited places, I often frequented as a teenager exploring my city. My eye is drawn to the detritus, the residue and the accidental layering of signs and symbols of paints, varnish and stickers, be they instruction or advert. The paintings are laced with the formal translation of these processes using processes of my own - photography, photocopy, adhesion, saturation, abrasion and addition. In the development of this work I’m not simply recreating a found image, I am making a visual commentary on the forces of urbanity that negate, displace and corrode."