No Returns - Alison Ballance

About

Alison Ballance makes site-specific sculptures that use form and place to consider creativity, the present and art as theatre. No Returns was begun by making drawings concentrating on form, observations and Working Room's internal space. Ballance looks at art making as a process of thought. She follows an instinct about the materials, using this process to discover the potential of the piece. As the piece is installed in the space it becomes less object-like and more of a moment to be experienced; the pieces should be of the present tense and not fruitlessly nostalgic. Here the context of display is a key point of interest to her, the work adopts a theatrical air and becomes a spectacle. Most of her work is made in project spaces or unused rooms, exhibiting them solo to underline a chance sighting or performance quality to them. When the sculptures are shown in this theatrical and installation manner, they become mediate forms between the viewer and the physical world, playing out a part. She is keen to question Art's status: What does the artist actually do and is it worthwhile? Through her work, Ballance proposes that art is used to celebrate and to draw attention to something; how the act of making is essentially wanting someone else to see what you mean — look at this.