Austin Ballard grew up in Charlotte, North Carolina, with a Catholic family that was heavily immersed in NASCAR—his grandfather, father, and uncles were all pit crewmen in the '80s and '90s. At an early age, Ballard found that he was neither interested in stock car racing nor fixing cars, but had creative interests that he says ‘rebelled’ against NASCAR culture. He enjoyed comic books, skateboarding and music as a child and went on to pursue art at RISD. Today, Ballard is an urban transplant and established artist in NYC who handcrafts sculptural exhibitions inspired by home décor, architecture, history, film, and nostalgic experiences. He has done more than ten art residencies in cities all over the east coast and has shown his art in numerous exhibitions and private collections in the U.S. and the U.K. Ballard currently works in Ridgewood, Queens, and has created 19th century-inspired ceramic furniture, brightly colored wallpapers, and lounge chairs and totemic lamp sculptures. He uses materials like mahogany, enamel, clay, plywood, textiles, and woven materials. Ballard recently showed his Shadow Lake project at the Smack Mellon Gallery in Dumbo, which took place from March to April. For Shadow Lake, Ballard created draped lamps out of canvas wood, clay and cane webbing in pink, orange and yellow hues. The whimsical, ethereal lamps were inspired by Ballard’s grandmother’s home in North Carolina. We spoke to Ballard to learn more about his Southern roots, his eclectic aesthetic, and his experiences as an artist.
How did you become interested in art?
As a kid I found that I had a knack for illustration—often times I would be off on my own drawing. So much so that when I got older people started asking me to draw their portraits or their favorite band logos. The attention I got was exciting and in a way validation that something I was doing was important and actually had some impact on other peoples lives. From that moment on, art became entangled in everything I thought about.
How does your upbringing in Charlotte, NC influence your design aesthetic?
It’s not until you’re outside of a place that you realize the impact it has on your development. The older I get, the more I realize how my connection to North Carolina, its culture and traditions, continue to influence my practice. Raised in North Carolina, where the textile industry historically played a fundamental and utilitarian role, I have a vested interest in making art approachable and accessible. With an interest in furniture and home decor, I create vividly patterned sculptures out of natural materials such as cane from the rattan palm. Utilizing traditional techniques of textile pattern-making, natural dying and ceramic slab-building I create ‘seamful’ works. This process ensures my hand and labor are revealed, contrasting the manufactured polish of high-end, modern design.
Why did you move to New York City, and what has the change of scenery been like for you, personally and professionally?
After a few years of traveling for residencies and teaching in NC, I decided I wanted to set up a more permanent practice. Most of my residency and college friends were based in NYC, so it was a pretty easy decision to make.
You’ve done a lot of impressive residencies. Tell us about them.
The three or four years following graduate school I traveled a lot for residences. I saw them as a way to continue my education, growing and developing my practice amongst other artists. Each one offered me something unique and valuable. The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown is amazing for the sheer amount of time and space you’re granted to work. But my time at the Ox-Bow School of Art has always held a special place in my heart.
Tell me about your most recent exhibition at Smack Mellon.
Shadow Lake came about after I was asked to propose an installation for their rear gallery space. Already knowing the industrial architecture of the main gallery and how I didn't want to compete with its scale and weight, I decided to go the other direction. Making a space that felt quiet, intimate, and weightless. I took inspiration from my grandmother’s house growing up. To recount the space, I had my grandmother draw a floor plan of our house, labeling and positioning each piece of furniture and lamp fixture as she remembered it. I then overlaid her floor plan on the gallery floor, arranging a different sculpture for each room. Inspired by the textiles of my home growing, I pleated, draped and piled lampshades into cascading totemic forms. The sculptures display an affection for the handmade while suggesting that more mysterious factors are at play. Raised in a devout Catholic household, I fused the visual language of my religious upbringing with an early fascination of '80s science fiction and noir films to a create an installation that is eerily sublime. I see furniture, and in particular the household lamp, as a surrogate for the human body. A light left on in an empty room reminds us that someone was just there. The shades and the light they emit suggest a sort of timeline in which memories fade away at intervals.
You’ve shown in a lot of different galleries all over the country and some in Europe. How do you get into a gallery? Do you apply, or do places reach out and commission you?
It’s a bit of both. Working as an independent artist, I can show with different galleries at the same time. Sometimes galleries will reach out to me directly to propose an exhibition or to be part of a show, but most of the time it’s grinding out one application after the next. Working in New York, most artists know about the same opportunities, so we all vie for the same ones each year. Often, working with any new gallery comes from knowing the curator and building a relationship with them over time.
What are some of your favorite and most proud works you’ve done?
I’m always most excited about my most recent project, but I’m still thinking about my exhibition last spring, entitled Rumors at Wave Hill in the Bronx. There are still so many aspects to the installation that I would like to develop into a new project. Rumors questioned the relationship between domesticity and leisure in an age of constant digital interfacing. The installation was constructed as an immersive, domestic setting made from hand-printed wallpaper and furniture fabricated out of cane webbing and epoxy clay. Intended as functional sculptures, the forms were reminiscent of Victorian furniture and recalled Wave Hill’s history as a private home. Referencing the original, 19th-century Victorian villa on the site of what is now Wave Hill’s Glyndor House, I reimagined iconic furniture pieces that might have existed there in years past, such as wicker chairs by Heywood-Wakefield. They served specific purposes: the fainting chair, for instance, invited women to recline and relax, while the têté-a-têté (head-to-head) chair encouraged conversation. Rumors offered a place for gossip and rumors to not only be shared in private, but to also be performed.
Any exciting projects coming up in the future?
Right now I’m working on a two personal commissions for sculptural lighting that I’m really excited about. They will be similar to some of the pieces in my Shadow Lake installation, but tweaked a little for their respective homes. Shadow Lake was such a personal exploration in my childhood homes that it’s such an honor to have so many people identify with the work. I’m also in the middle of developing a new permanent installation for a company here in New York City. There’s a lot left to be ironed out, but if it gets a green light it would be a massive undertaking and super exciting to develop.
What inspires your works today? How do you make sure you mix things up each time?
The architecture of Antoni Gaudi, '70s Horror and Sci-Fi films, and 19th Century Rattan furniture. Each new project I take on builds off of a previous work. There’s always something new and unexpected to be learned in my process. Every time I feel like I’m getting “too good” at one thing, I try to throw a wrench in the system, forcing myself to answer to a new set of questions. Sometimes that means pushing a material in a new direction, shifting scale, or exploring more personal narratives.
If you liked this story, check out more from our Urban Transplants issue.