Sensible

Everyone wants to sell you something, and here's our pitch. Unlike other shows profiling new and (post) emergent artists, this series contains no thematic alibi or curatorial catchphrases to disguise what we're really saying: we just think these people are some of the best new artists around!

And next in the ongoing Hard Sell series is Susan Ballard. Art theorist and artist, Susan Ballard is currently a lecturer in art theory at the School of Art, Otago Polytechnic in Dunedin. Her work has recently been included in Beyond the Surface, a touring show to the Dunedin Public Art Gallery and the Suter Gallery, Nelson. Delicate and organic, her work explores the organisms that surround us, the not-quite invisible matter which we take for granted.

With her exhibition Sensible at The Physics Room, Ballard utilises not just the visual, but also incorporates the senses of smell and sound. Her photographic works focus so closely on their subject, so as to blur to the edge of recognition. Similarly the scent used by Ballard to fill the gallery in this work is so overwhelmingly sweet to the point of repulsion. With the inclusion of scent and sound, Ballard creates an encompassing environment, and in effect makes the viewer all the more aware of how they perceive the world around them.

Susan Ballard has published a catalogue to accompany this exhibition, with assistance from the Otago Polytechnic Research and Development Committee.

Reviews, Essays & Articles
Artscene
The Package, August, 2002
Appleby, Matthew 

HARDSELL - BECAUSE YOU WANT IT!
SUSAN BALLARD - Artist Q&A
The Physics Room Annual, 2002