Naomi Ballance, Statements, Reinventing Places

Naomi L. Ballance

'Reinventing Places: Double Vision' brings together two bodies of work that explore the scenery of Ayrshire. The earliest group of paintings utilise landscape as a subject matter to push the limits between representation and non-representation, and to discover the results of enlarging images by copying and repainting. This body of work originates from drawings and photographs that are broken down into fragments by framing and cropping and then placed in series.

Continuing a dialogue with painting and landscape the later group of artworks address principles of decoration, the relationship between pattern and image, and Western perspective. A combination of photography, printed patterns and painting express and defined the place through pattern, colour, texture and outline. This results in the representational image being reduced to a simplified, stylised figure ground relationship and produces a balance between empty space and detail. Theoretically and visually a broader base is referred to through the use of various mediums, therefore the art is open to be interpreted from many angles. By bringing together a selection of techniques from a range of disciplines the hierarchies of their sources are undone and opened into a space in which the characteristics of the mediums can alter, swap and develop and new meanings and possibilities for art can be explored.