Bio.
Allen Ball (b. 1993, Green Cove Springs, Florida) is a New York-based artist whose work brings together painting, readymades, and sound to examine American landscape as a site of cultivation, development, maintenance, and erasure. Informed by early encounters with the slow conversion of forest to subdivision, Ball’s practice considers the gap between the landscapes America imagines for itself and the landscapes it actually produces: roadsides, residual woods, drainage edges, suburban margins, managed lawns, and plant life shaped by systems of infrastructure and control.
His Trace paintings on wood utilize pigments derived from hand-foraged clays and soils. These surfaces are built through multiple layers of paint applied over several days and then returned to the sites where their pigments were gathered; contact with the terrain mars their partially polymerized films. The resulting works function indexically as records of exposure, accumulation, and return, standing in for the material strata that persist beneath the urban grid.
At larger scales, Ball’s linen canvases are made with natural earth pigments and carbon black, condensing geological duration into dense, dark surfaces. In recent works, small paintings on black grounds depict plain skies, tree lines, clouds, and glimpses of managed and unmanaged land. These paintings are held in tar-like papier-mâché frames, where materials associated with repair, sealing, and weatherproofing become physical extensions of the image.
In installation, Ball uses surrogate objects such as decommissioned high-pressure sodium streetlights to create systems of competing temporalities. By rendering familiar forms of public infrastructure newly confrontational, he stages spaces in which visibility, duration, landscape, and the body’s orientation remain unsettled.
Ball holds an MFA from Pratt Institute and a BFA in Fine Art and Art History from the University of North Florida. He maintains a studio at the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, New York. Selected exhibitions include solo and group presentations at The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, the Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville, The Monira Foundation, and the Garment District Alliance Space for Public Art.
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2019 - Master of Fine Arts, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York
2017 - Bachelor of Fine Arts, The University of North Florida, Jacksonville, Florida
2014 - Associate of Arts, St. Johns River State College, Palatka, Florida
2014 - Associate of Science, Florida School of the Arts, Palatka, Florida
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2026 - Forest Lane, EFA Gallery, New York, New York. Commissioned through EFA's Focus Award.
2022 - Allen Thomas Ball at the Garment District Alliance Space for Public Art, New York, New York
2019 - Longleaf, Dekalb Gallery, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York
2019 - Topography, Gallery 710, Pfizer Building, Brooklyn, New York
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2025 - The Reality Principle, The Monira Foundation, Jersey City, New Jersey
2024 - The Power of Abstraction, Site:Brooklyn, Brooklyn, New York
2023 - Natural Elements, Blue Line Gallery, Roseville, California
2022 - 50 an Alumni Exhibition, Museum of Contemporary Art, Jacksonville, Florida
2022 - Dread in the Eyes, The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, New York, New York
2021 - Flux Factory Fundraising Exhibition, Flux Factory, Brooklyn, New York
2021 - EFA Originals, Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, New York, New York
2020 - Freedom is an Act, Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, New York, New York
2020 - Morongo Valley, Art Off Screen / Neumeraki, Morongo Valley, California
2020 - After Quarantine, Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, New York, New York
2019 - Strategies of Artistic Protest, gh36 open space, Große Hamburger Strasse 36, 10115 Berlin, Germany
2019 - All In, Pratt Manhattan Gallery, New York, New York
2018 - Small Root, Pfizer Building, Brooklyn, New York
2018 - Strata, Pratt Institute South Hall, Brooklyn, New York
2017 - Convocation: Pratt MFA Welcome Back Show, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York
2017 - Printmaking National Exhibition, Mark Arts Center, Wichita, Kansas
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Galerie Michael Bargo
George King & Sarah Stuyvesant King
The Stanley Center for Peace and Security
The University of North Florida Print Collection
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2026 – Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts Gallery, Focus Award
2026 – Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts Studio Program, renewal residency
2025 – Pollinator CoOp Program, residency
2024 – Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts Studio Program, renewal residency
2020 – The Potato Farm Project residency, Jamesport, New York
2020 – Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts Studio Program, member artist residency
2018 – Graduate Student Engagement Fund grant, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York
2018 – Graduate Merit Scholarship, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York
2017 – Two-Year Merit Scholarship, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York
2016 – Lane Scholarship, University of North Florida Study Abroad Program, Croatia
2015 – Grey Scholarship, University of North Florida Department of Art and Design Study Abroad Program, Italy
2012 – Talent Scholarship, Florida School of the Arts, Palatka, Florida
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2026 - Forest Lane, EFA Focus Award
2019- Pratt Institute, Topography
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Alyssa Bird, Caitlyn St. John, and Kelly Velocci, “Brooklyn Heights Designer Showhouse,” NYC&G Magazine, November 2019, p. 53. Photographs by Anastassios Mentis
Irene Madrigal, “10 New Public Art Installations in NYC April 2022,” Untapped Cities, April 2022
“The Garment District Alliance Unveils 38th Street Display Window with Artwork by Allen Thomas Ball,” Gotham To Go, March 16, 2022
Eileen Jeng Lynch, “Morongo Valley,” Neumeraki, July 2020
“The Work of Allen Thomas Ball Featured,” Jacksonville Jewish News, April 2019, p. 24
Lily Fürstenow, “Artistic Research Encounters / We ARE Research,” Artistic Research Encounters / We ARE Research, November 2019
Lily Fürstenow, “Protest - Strategies of Artistic Protest,” Georgia Today, November 13–14, 2019
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2026 – School of Visual Arts, studio visit, Studio Practice II, Professor Katya Grokhovsky, June 25
2024 – School of Visual Arts, studio visit and artist talk, Professor Katya Grokhovsky, June 27
2024 – Pratt Institute, studio visit, “Pratt BFA Professional Practices,” hosted by Professor Donna Moran, February 27
2023 – Pratt Institute, guest speaker, “Pratt MFA Professional Practices,” hosted by Professor Bill Carroll, November 29
2023 – Pratt Institute, guest speaker, “Pratt MFA Professional Practices,” hosted by Professor Bill Carroll, April 19
2022 – Pratt Institute, guest speaker, “Pratt MFA Professional Practices,” hosted by Professor Bill Carroll, November 16
2022 – Yale University, studio visit and artist talk, “Drawing,” hosted by Instructor Justin Kim, April 16
2022 – Pratt Institute, studio visit, “BFA Professional Practices,” hosted by Professor Donna Moran, March 4
2021 – Pratt Institute, studio visit, “BFA Professional Practices,” hosted by Professor Donna Moran, December 1
2021 – Pratt Institute, guest speaker, “BFA Professional Practices,” hosted by Professor Donna Moran, November 30
2021 – School of Visual Arts, studio visit and artist talk, hosted by Professor Katya Grokhovsky, July 14
2021 – Pratt Institute, guest speaker, “Pratt BFA Professional Practices,” hosted by Professor Bill Carroll, April 7
2021 – Pratt Institute, guest speaker, “Pratt BFA Professional Practices,” hosted by Professor Donna Moran, February 24
2020 – EFA Studio Program, “Studio Visits with Allen Ball and EFA Studios Assistant Director Natalia Nakazawa”
2020 – William Ris Gallery, “Artist Talk: Allen Thomas Ball at William Ris Gallery,” November 7
2020 – Pratt Institute, guest speaker, “Pratt MFA Professional Practices,” November 4
2020 – EFA Studio Program, EFA Virtual Open Studios 2020, “Lunch with Studios Director Bill Carroll”
2020 – EFA Studio Program, EFA Virtual Open Studios 2020, “New Member Panel”
2020 – Pratt Institute, guest lecture, “Professional Practices,” hosted by Professor Bill Carroll, September 25
2020 – Pratt Institute, guest lecture, “Graduate Professional Practices,” hosted by Professor Bill Carroll, September 23
2020 – EFA Studio Program, “Q&A with Member Artist Allen Ball,” hosted by Stephen Braun of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, June 18
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2023 - Present, Gallery Manager, Hostler Burrows (HB381 Tribeca), New York, NY
2022, Executive Assistant, Mubadala Investment Company, New York, NY
2021 - 2022, Gallery Manager / Assistant Director, Freight + Volume Galleries, New York, NY
2019 - 2021, Head Preparator, EFA Project Space, New York, NY
2017 - 2019, Studio Manager, Dannielle Tegeder Studios, New York, NY
Technical Training
2010 NCCER Certification, Core & Level One Carpentry, National Center for Construction Education and Research
Viewing Room