MORAG BALLARD
Morag’s paintings and constructions juxtapose geometric and linear elements, which combine advancing and receding manipulations of colour, creating complex works with three-dimensional qualities. Her characteristic precision and lightness of touch, explores relationships between implied spaces using architectural inspired forms.
Born in London in 1961, Morag Ballard studied at Chelsea School of Art, London from 1981-2 where she first experimented with the interrelationships between two-dimensional and three-dimensional expressions of form.
This led her to study sculpture at Bath Academy of Art from 1982-1985. Here she studied under Michael Pennie and Ken Hughes and came into contact with some of the leading British sculptors of the time – including Richard Deacon and Antony Gormley.
In 1983 she was awarded the Gane Trust Travel Scholarship for sculpture, taking her to Carrara, Italy.
On completing her degree, Morag Ballard was awarded a student internship at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice in 1986, where she found her direction validated by the study of works of the Russian Constructivists, the paintings of Jean Helion and the boxes of Joseph Cornell.
On her return to the UK she set up a studio in South West Scotland where she began to develop her ideas through paintings, reliefs and boxed constructions.
After five years in Scotland, Morag moved to Penzance where she now lives, and works aesthetically in tune with the line of abstraction that developed in Cornwall via Naum Gabo, Peter Lanyon and John Wells.