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< Artists
Ruminations on Beauty: Prints by Stephen Ballance
 Steve Ballance has always been fascinated in the changes that occur when the world is transmuted by the photographic process. As the various processes record and translate the subject matter, our perception of it is changed, and different processes change it in very different ways. It is analogous to the ancient practice of alchemy where the wizard attempt to change base metals into gold and other precious metals.
In terms of content, Ballance is trying to understand and expand the traditions which have grown out of the use of the human figure and of still lifes. The human figure provides him with psychological and emotional qualities to which the viewer can respond, as well as readily identifiable qualities of line, form, texture and value.
Ballance leverages this response with masks and symbolic objects or by framing out the subject’s face as a way to universalize the viewer’s identification with the image. This creates a situation in which there is always considerable ambiguity in the way the viewer “reads” the image.
The artist’s past explorations involve the use of a technique called Polaroid Transfer in which the image is photographed on Polaroid film. The film is then cut apart before it can fully develop and the part containing the dyes is pressed onto dampened watercolor paper. Ballance then scans them into the computer and has them printed on an IRIS inkjet printer (sometimes called Giclee prints).
Most recently, Ballance has been interested in photographic processes achieved without the use of a camera. His photograms are created by placing figures and objects directly on a light-sensitive surface and exposing them to light. The objects appear as negative silhouettes with different values.
He has also been experimenting with images created by directly scanning objects on a flatbed scanner. A self-proclaimed “anti-photographer,” Ballance continues to push the boundary and skew the norm, leading us all to question: “What is photography?”
Ballance is Professor Emeritus in the Art Department at Northwestern Michigan College and has shown his work widely throughout the midwest. He may be reached at (231) 946-5317 or emailed at: sballance@earthlink.net.
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