Paul Balland is a French\British, London-based photographer. In the past 15 years, he has developed a unique practice of fine art photography, shooting and collecting a large archive of images and works that are related to the cultural originality of local communities and their environment. His practice explores the relations of urban, natural and industrial environments, mostly derelict and often forgotten, with the aesthetics of the oneiric (a dreamlike reality).

 

Balland’s research starts from his interest in marginal areas that contain multiple layers of everyday human life and working activities. These traces are found in places that are of non-aesthetic interest, but that references human geographies and local cultures. This point of focus and his camera are instrumental to create his original narrative of dreamlike realities, through manifesting unexpected, fantastic, imaginary worlds, although preserving their intensity as human testimony. Starting from exploring sites of interest in cities, suburbs and countryside, Balland identifies chromatic or textural details of walls, pavements, architectural structures, derelict and found objects.

 

Within this extensive archive of places and objects, and through the lenses of his camera, he captures the dream. The result is always abstract and suggestive, inspired by the legacy of artists like Gerhard Richter and Mark Rothko. Through his work Balland invites the viewers to discover an alternative aesthetic, searching for new elements of beauty, between reality and imagination.

 

Exhibited previously:

2017 The Ivy Club London "The Boatyard", London UK
2016 Royal Academy of Art, Summer Exhibition, London UK
2016 The Ivy Club London "Emerging Artists Group Show", London UK