Chris Ballantyne’s paintings communicate a specific brand of serene, solitary joy. It’s a little like riding an endless left alone at the beach: slightly spooky, slightly amazing. Ballantyne’s work has its own rhythm and its own emptiness. He’s definitely comfortable with the void.
Floating on muted fields of color, the islands, waterfalls, jetties, pools and buildings of the artist’s work adopt a weird significance that is alternately touching and alienating. It’s the kind of work you want to look at all alone, with no one else in the gallery. Possibly it has something to do with the birds-eye perspective of the paintings, or the fact that his subjects are the stuff of everyday life—the kind of stuff we gloss over in the course of our routines. Nice to see that someone’s giving it a closer look.
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Beautiful work!