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Exhibition
Information
If one wants to find the meaning of an artist’s work it all depends on whom you ask, in the case of Johnathan Ball this is especially the case. He has been described as a graffiti artist, a comic book artist, a dynamic illustrator, a classical artist, photographer, and the list goes on. If you ask Johnathan, he describes his work as Sci-fi Neo Expressionism, or Neo Expressionistic Futurism, any less of an answer would be just as surprising. He wants his work to be perceived as dark but hopeful, beautiful and ugly at the same time. Its this juxtaposition of ideas that gives his work the edge that most artists fail to find. Indeed to look at most of his work requires a pause, and a moment to take the image in, to absorb what one is witnessing. Johnathan is if nothing else an extremely talented visual artist. His work is sublime, colorful, evocative but most of all inspiring.
Growing up Johnathan describes himself as a nerd, avidly watching Star Trek, and documentaries about science and the future. As a teenager he was a lover of comic books, and graffiti. His work has currents of imagery that derivie inspiration from these sources.
Johnathan Ball makes his living as a professional photographer in Toronto. His Photographic process has influenced his art making process from its inception and vice versa. A man of may talents its hard to say Johnathan is only one thing, he excels at illustration as well as painting. He has illustrated for Carnival Comics; a division of Simmons Comics and has taught illustration from the age of 16 on.
At the young age of 26 he has already accomplished more than most of his contemporaries. He has been in numerous publications, including Toronto’s Where magazine, Where essentials, and ARTnews. He has been interviewed by Rogers local and CP24’s Matt Babel. In 2010 He received an emerging artist award by the Ontario arts council. He has auctioned work for the Canadian Foundation For Aids Research and other charitable events for fellow artists. In 2006 a fellow artists studio was destroyed in a fire along with hundreds of thousands of dollars in paintings, Johnathan and a group of other artists all participated in a show at the Gladstone hotel in which profits from all paintings sold would be donated to their colleague.
Johnathan Ball is one of the truest forms of artist; talented, creative, helpful and inspiring to those around him. His work has been called everything form ugly to dark to beautiful. Like most talented artists his work isn’t always palatable but like most famous artists you just cant help being intrigued. His work holds you, draws you in, and if you let it shows you a part of the world, a part of yourself that you haven’t seen before.
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