Columbia artist Matt Ballou to exhibit at WWU

10/31/2012 Mary Ann Beahon
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (573) 592-1127

 

Artist Matt Ballou’s paintings and drawings will be featured in William Woods University’s Mildred M. Cox Gallery Nov. 16 through Dec. 16. The opening reception will be from 4:30 to 6 p.m. Nov. 30.

Ballou is an artist and writer living in Columbia with his wife and daughter. He is an assistant teaching professor at the University of Missouri, where he has taught for the past five years. He was a finalist for the 2011 Ruminate Visual Art Prize and he earned the Outstanding Graduate Faculty Award from the University of Missouri Graduate Student Association in 2012.
 
He earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in painting and drawing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2001 and his Master of Fine Arts degree in painting from Indiana University in 2005.
 
His artwork has been featured in two solo exhibits in Boston and Seattle, along with a two-person show with Tim Lowly in Louisville, Ky. This summer his work was exhibited in a prestigious show juried by famed author and critic, Dore Aston, at First Street Gallery in New York City.
 
Over the next year Ballou’s work will be showcased in many exhibitions, including ones at the Springfield Art Museum in Missouri and the Evanston Art Center near Chicago. His mezzotint work can be seen in the Both Sides of the Brain, an exhibition that will travel to many venues between 2012 and 2014.
 
 “I create paintings and drawings in an attempt to address—through archetypal themes and symbols—the fundamental questions, ideas, hopes, and concerns I have about being in the world,” Ballou said.
 
“I write texts in an attempt to integrate rational conceptions with my passionate, sometimes illogical, visual expressions. In tandem, these avenues form a multifaceted array of investigation and inquiry that I use every day to, hopefully, understand and make sensible the miraculous reality of being.”
 
The Mildred M. Cox Gallery is open 9 a.m.-6.p.m. Monday through Friday and 1-4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Admission is free and open to the public. For more information, call (573) 592-4245.





CUTLINES:
  • Self-portrait with strata of shells
  • Figment (colored pencil on paper)
  • Portrait of my Father