EFA STUDIO PROGRAM: Member Artists
Allen Thomas Ball
I create paintings, sculptures, and installations rooted in deep time, geology, history, and human perception. Paintings are made from the earth itself. Collected soils are slaked, ground by hand through a laborious process, and mixed with oils and mediums to create paints applied to linen, panels, or pit-fired ceramic tablets. While still wet they are taken on subsequent hikes; the bruises and scratches they accumulate a document of their making. Once dry they are never to be cleaned; their sedimentation continuing indefinitely they are to represent a foundation of our shared physical existence.
Presented as tableaus, sculptural installations counter the paintings with the evolution of thought and contradictions that explore art history, and societal structures using materials such as found objects, paintings, sculptures, journal entries, and murals.
Allen holds a master’s degree in Fine Art from Pratt Institute (2019) and a bachelor’s degree in Fine Art and Art History from the University of North Florida (2017). He honed his printmaking skills under master printer John Hutcheson of Tyler Graphics. He also had the privilege of studying abroad in Italy, Croatia, and Slovenia.
