Richard Ballard

Richard Ballard is tension. His art is about tension.

You find in his paintings the tension between beauty and beast, between technology and God. If you look at his sky, you will find harmony within tension, a tension framing the sky that precipitates the unknown, the fear of the last moment.

There is something mysterious and a suspense in his paintings punctuated by the dripping line of paint at the corner of his power line pylon against the clear sky. A sky that couldn't be as impersonal as he paints it embraced by cold black iron bars. In contrast, his evening cloud covered sky paintings, are the cry of heaven and bliss to the eye.

Where does such beauty emerge foreboding perhaps the end of the things we cherish, as the clouds move virtually swiftly capturing the golden light --that twilight? Richard Ballard certainly captures the imagination as tension captures your spine.

On the one hand he shows harmony and beauty, on the other he turns your head to that which has made us slaves of technology. It takes a while to understand his paintings which are classic as well as modern - they settle you into the here and now. http://www.seine51.com