FUTURE ASPECT
Some things are worth the wait as evidenced by a winning bid for a live auction of custom artwork offered by UK artist Adam Ball. Won by Selwyn Rayzor and Richard Moses during the 2014 edition of MTV RE:DEFINE, the timing marked the future. The couple had recently purchased a modernist estate called the Stretto House, designed by Steven Holl in 1989, and had tasked Max Levy to design an addition which would take some time. They were, therefore, in no hurry to receive their ensuing creation from Ball.
Fast-forward to 2018, Adam Ball is in Dallas to install Aspect, the title of the work for the completed addition. “They gave me an exciting opportunity to make a site-specific new piece for their beautiful home, and trusted in me to make a piece that essentially they'd never seen before," Ball said of Rayzor and Moses.
London-based, Ball is no stranger to Dallas. He has attended and donated to RE:DEFINE a few times, and with fresh-faced good looks and a faithful smile he's made a lot of friends here. On one such occasion, at his solo show, The Space Between Us at The Goss-Michael Foundation, the collectors had acquired one of Ball's light-boxes largely derived from lab-produced slides of the artist's own DNA.
Ball, who carefully considers his work before onset, says his subject matter is “derived from many sources, both via images I create myself and by collaborating with others. I've recently worked with laboratories, chemists, and pharmacists to access images I couldn't otherwise make." With a great deal of latitude from these collectors, he created a float-mounted graphite-on- paper work to emphasize movement, color, and the shadows it casts at different times of the day. The work required precision: "Once I've finalized the drawing, I start cutting with a surgical scalpel, which is a labor-intensive, slow process. Color is then sprayed in many layers onto the back, and raw pigment and graphite powder are added to the front using muslin and brushes, to gradually add a surface patina to the paper. As the pigment is not fixed, it has a tendency to get everywhere, with varying amounts of control and success. After a day in the studio doing this, my two-year-old daughter refuses to hug me!"
Ball doesn't seem to mind the passage of time some projects take. A “legacy moment," in his career has finally arrived after seven years of creation. This September, the artist will install his first permanent public outdoor sculpture in Cambridge. Appointed by HOK International in 2011 when his son was just five months old, he was chosen to create an original work for the outside of the new Royal Papworth Hospital, the center for heart and lungs in the UK. Working closely with HOK he designed a light box that would ultimately form the exterior walls of the Royal Papworth next to the main entrance, backlit by an LED lighting system programmed to change color during the course of the year.
He also sought input from the hospital surgeons and staff to affirm and reflect their ongoing medical advancements. At one-story high and 50-feet wide, Ball's Until the day you feel good will stand astride patients and staff alike fostering a positive and encouraging experience.
Walking through the corridor where Aspect is hung on pins, void of attachments in the middle to bring light and movement, it's easy to see why his work is perfectly earmarked as a welcoming beacon for the hospital. Gesturing to Aspect, Ball said, "I want this piece to feel energy."
