Anthony Ballard
Anthony Ballard was a self-taught artist who created precise black and white geometric drawings using old Rapidograph technical pens. Found underpriced at a flea market, Ballard, who had only taken a few drawing classes, used these pens to make up for his lack of learned technique. Using templates–plates for circles and household objects for triangles–he began making drawings of bubbles with figures inside them in the 1980s. He arranged a series of areas to fill in with lines and squares and ink in. Explaining his process the artist once stated, “If I come across any error, I incorporate the error into the drawing and make another series of drawings around that to include it. I do it all very, very slowly and very meticulously.” Eventually, these witty drawings took on an erotic tone, populated by naked bodies engaged in orgies. By the 1990s he stopped using figures in his art, in favor of geometric abstractions. These swerving angles, circles, stripes recall Op-Art, computer graphics, and draftsmen illustrations.
Ballard, who died in 2008, was long affiliated with Fountain Gallery–a space devoted to the work of artists suffering from mental illnesses. His work has also been exhibited at White Columns in …
Anthony Ballard was a self-taught artist who created precise black and white geometric drawings using old Rapidograph technical pens. Found underpriced at a flea market, Ballard, who had only taken a few drawing classes, used these pens to make up for his lack of learned technique. Using templates–plates for circles and household objects for triangles–he began making drawings of bubbles with figures inside them in the 1980s. He arranged a series of areas to fill in with lines and squares and ink in. Explaining his process the artist once stated, “If I come across any error, I incorporate the error into the drawing and make another series of drawings around that to include it. I do it all very, very slowly and very meticulously.” Eventually, these witty drawings took on an erotic tone, populated by naked bodies engaged in orgies. By the 1990s he stopped using figures in his art, in favor of geometric abstractions. These swerving angles, circles, stripes recall Op-Art, computer graphics, and draftsmen illustrations.
Ballard, who died in 2008, was long affiliated with Fountain Gallery–a space devoted to the work of artists suffering from mental illnesses. His work has also been exhibited at White Columns in New York in group exhibition curated by Matthew Higgs.