Roger Ballen Biography
Roger Ballen (1950 - ) is one of the most influential and important photographic artists of the 21st century; his photographs span over forty years. His strange and extreme works confront the viewer and challenge him to come with him on a journey into his own mind as he explores the deepest recesses of his own. Ballen was born in New York in 1950 but has lived and worked in South Africa for over 30 years. Known for his disturbing psychological portraits of rural inhabitants on the fringes of South African society, Ballen worked as a geologist and mining consultant before starting his career as a photographer, finding inspiration for his work in the people he met as a mining troubadour in the small villages in rural South Africa. Since then, his work has moved beyond observation and documentation towards abstraction and complex narratives. His photographs go beyond human subjects and embark on an imaginative physiological journey, which blurs the boundaries of reality or fiction. Ballen has lived and worked in Johannesburg, South Africa, for more than 30 years. In 2001, Ballen's book Outland won best photography book of the year at PhotoEspaña. Ballen's other monographs include Ballenesque: Roger Ballen, A Retrospective (2017), Roger Ballen: Resurrected (2016), The Theater of Apparitions (2016), Asylum of the Birds (2014), Lines, Marks, and Drawings: Through the Lens of Roger Ballen (2013), Photographs 1969-2009 (2011), Animal Abstraction (2011), Boarding House (2009), Shadow Chamber (2005), Platteland (1994), Dorps (1986) and Boyhood (1979). Ballen's photographs are included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Center Georges Pompidou, Paris; the Victoria & Albert Museum, London; and the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.
