Sarah Ball

Stephen Friedman Gallery presents its first solo exhibition by British artist Sarah Ball.

Demonstrating an acute sensitivity to the psyche of her subjects, Ball’s enigmatic portraits explore the way we project images of ourselves to the world.

Using closely cropped compositions, this body of work celebrates individuals whose self-expression contest conventional gender norms. Ball focuses on the idiosyncrasies of her sitters by depicting their physiognomy, jewellery, makeup and tattoos. These new paintings reveal a newly abstracted visual language for the artist. Soft brushstrokes, muted colour palettes and monochromatic backgrounds contrast with the confrontational gazes of her subjects. The immediacy of their gazes is intensified by the dramatic shifts in scale of the paintings.

Ball’s works often draw attention to the discrepancies between appearance and gender identity. Using a range of sources to inform her portraits, including newspaper cuttings, archival photographs and social media, Ball says that these new paintings are the “most autobiographical to date. They draw on [her] memories of young adulthood and the influence of artists such as David Bowie, Chrissy Hynde, Poly Styrene and Siouxsie Sioux.”