Richard Ballinger

Now installed in a new studio in Penzance, Richard Ballinger had already had several years as an exhibiting artist in Gloucestershire before moving to Cornwall in 1999.

For a number of years he had made relatively conventional abstract paintings, but the need to find a unique personal voice led him away from paint towards making composite objects that operate as two-dimensional images, but which are actually made from familiar but unlikely pre-formed materials.

Richard prefers to call his works ‘constructions’. They are all compiled or built up from smaller units; objects populated by fragments of other objects like pencils, straws and plastic rulers. Together these re-sorted particles function like computer pixels to create artworks modest in size but high in visual impact and sensory pleasure.

The democratic all-over composition that comes from using such tiny building blocks contrasts with the constructions of St Ives modernists like Margaret Mellis and John Wells which were more three-dimensional and characterised by a balance of forms and uneven abstract rythyms.

Instead, in keeping with the pop-conceptual sensibility of contemporary artists like Tom Friedman and Ceal Floyer, the denotative qualities of the otherwise ordinary objects used in Richards work are retained and the viewer is able to witness their transformation into something startling and beautiful.

"The day I hung up my paint brushes, the same day I deconstructed a felt-tip pen. A feeling of eureka and a sense of originality crept in, bringing a turning point in my own artwork. Now I take my hand to any form of construction and installation, sometimes reverting back to a painterly outcome. Other works are like invented puzzles, giving an overall impression of controlled chaos. The infrastructure is deconstructed and reconstructed to create an associated viewing. Generally the starting point of these ideas is topical, using education and politics as a debated format. The creative process softens the outcome with a sense of humour and irony."