Bio.

Allen Ball (b. 1993, Green Cove Springs, Florida) is a New York-based artist whose work merges painting, sculpture, and installation to examine land use and the subtle architectures of control within the American landscape. Through a practice rooted in fieldwork and material research, Ball investigates the infrastructures that shape visibility from the electrical grid to the linguistic naming of the commons.

Ball’s work is organized around a dual inquiry into Geological Time and Systemic Time. In his Trace paintings, he utilizes hand-ground mineral pigments and foraged clays to record temporal processes that predate and outlast municipal history. These intimate works stand in contrast to his large-scale paintings of fractured rock faces, which compress millions of years of geological pressure into dense, abraded surfaces. When placed in dialogue with industrial elements such as high-pressure sodium lighting or specific-frequency soundscapes, these works ask what timescales we inhabit simultaneously and whose interests the built environment was designed to serve.

Ball holds an MFA from Pratt Institute (2019) and a BFA in Fine Art and Art History from the University of North Florida (2017). He maintains a studio at the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, New York. His work has been exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville; The Monira Foundation, Jersey City; and the Garment District Alliance Space for Public Art, New York.