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Inventive artist and designer Benjamin Ball expands horizons “in a territory between architecture, public art, and industrial design.” On a quest to heighten sensorial and interactive participation, he seeks ways to achieve these aims by creating artwork with innovative features. The methodology Ball subscribes to involves using new software and matter to shatter or deconstruct the physical realm, going beyond to bring more and new definition to a space. Important exhibitions of his have taken place at the Guggenheim Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Museum of Modern Art PS1, and the Venice Biennale.

My Projects

  • Above the Ploughman’s Highest Line

    Suggestive of a stripped cloud, Above the Ploughman’s Highest Line hovers within the Allied Health Building on the Davis Tech campus. The process of its making is integral to its meaning. I made an abstract aerial image of the Great Salt Lake and surrounding mountainscape. I then abstracted this into a stack of colored horizontal bands that pass through a three dimensional array of suspended catenary curves made of thin chains. The shape of the artwork is informed by the architecture of the space where it is situated; it is an extension of the building itself. It is a formal response to the architecture of the host building while making a conceptual connection to the iconic Utah landscape. Made of enamel coated, stainless steel ball-chain, the work measures 36' x 16' x 22 '6'' and was commissioned by the State of Utah Division of Arts and Museums.

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  • Air Garden

    Air Garden embodies qualities of light and space. It does not have a distinct beginning or end; it is both an object and an atmosphere. Its appearance is not static as it is predicated on changing quality of light in the north light well at any hour of the day. Air Garden is a serene moment amidst the hectic action and movement within the airport, a pause within this movement; a place for reflection and repose, an opportunity for the traveler to daydream. Within the confines of passport kiosks, security checkpoints, ticket counters, and other forms surveillance and control, it is our aim for this work to engender a sense of freedom Like most gardens, it cannot be comprehended from a single point of view; and by participating in the ambulatory movement customary to the airport experience; it is inherently linked to the trajectory of one’s journey. Its components are made of gestural volumes of color hovering within an immense array of catenaries. These voluminous brush strokes on a translucent three dimensional canvas dissolve into washes of color then snap back into clear strokes with one’s changing perspective. Dimensions: 52’ x 16’ x 87’ Materials: stainless steel ball-chain, enamel paint

  • Open Prairie

    The natural environment has historically been a source of inspiration for artists. Landscape painting by American Regionalists was the point of departure for this installation. During the design process, we mapped a composition of colors from an imaginary Kansas prairie onto over 20,000 segments of painted stainless-steel ball-chain; each segment unique in length and position. To accommodate such intricacy, Ball-Nogues Studio worked with a computer-controlled machine of their own design to aid in the meticulous process of cutting the chain into segments and linking them in precise order. Dimensions: 11'6" x 19' x 23' Materials: stainless steel ball-chain, enamel paint, aluminum plate This work is part of the Johnson County, Kansas Public Art Collection.

  • Shady Lane

    My aim was to depict Southern live oak trees, icons of the American South, as they might appear along an idyllic street in New Orleans. The panoramic work spans a children’s play space, transforming a banal fence into a two-sided mural. We borrowed techniques from the classic “Lite Brite” toy to construct the project. Functioning like the colored pegs of the toy, thousands of transparent acrylic squares, the size of playing cards, form a pointillist image of the trees. The little squares or “pixels” are like pieces of stained glass that filter sunlight and project color onto the surface of the fence. While ‘Shady Lane’ honors the storybook history of New Orleans, the shimmering pixels catch the attention of kids and those drawn to an 8-bit video game aesthetic. The work is made of 3form Acrylic mounted on anodized aluminum panels and measures 10’ x 130’ x 5". It is located at LSU Health School of Allied Health Professionals’ Human Development Center and commissioned by Louisiana Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism.

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