Roger Ballen

‘After five decades of photographing, I recently began to produce Polaroids that incorporate drawings. These images represent a turning point in my integration of drawing and photography. Previously, I photographed drawings; now I have drawn on the surface of the photograph itself. The product is not a drawing or a photograph but both. With this mixed medium, I have created images that question the boundary between reality and fiction to an even greater extent. This new technique has deepened the so-called Ballenesque aesthetic.’ – Roger Ballen

Surreal, refined, disturbing: Roger Ballen has made a name for himself with his special eye for what is usually considered minor or outside, yet is nevertheless profound and touching. In his hands, the documentary power of the camera merges with the ingenious power of his imagination to look into a person’s soul and get under the viewer’s skin. Elaborately produced between 2015 and 2020, his new project is called Roger the Rat. In oppressively sharp black-and-white shots, he follows the life of a creature whose body appears human, but who has the head of a rat. Picture after picture, we witness scenes that—deconstructed and wrested from everyday gestures—reveal the suppressed aspects of human existence.

Considered one of the most original image-makers of the 21st century, American-born photographer Roger Ballen has lived and worked in South Africa for four decades. ‘Asylum of the Birds’ is set within the confines of a makeshift house on the outskirts of Johannesburg, a place inhabited by individuals at the absolute margins of society. In this anarchic place, the human and animal inhabitants collaborate as Ballen’s cast in an on-going series of quasi-directed performances. As we enter Ballen’s layered netherworld the images simultaneously repel and compel our gaze and transport us to an even darker dream world, that of the fears within our own imagination. The omnipresent birds, both alive and dead, signal a foreboding reminiscent of Hitchcock, while simultaneously suggesting hope and freedom. While the word ‘asylum’ could be defined a place of insanity, it also suggests refuge and persists in our mind as a metaphor for redemption.

‘My purpose in taking photographs over the past forty years has ultimately been about defining myself. It has been fundamentally a psychological and existential journey.’ – Roger Ballen

In his series Theatre of Apparitions, Roger Ballen explores the boundaries between photography and drawing, developing a distinctive and enigmatic visual language. By scratching and removing material from darkened glass surfaces, he creates lines and forms that he subsequently captures through photography. Through the interplay of light, shadow and exposure, these traces transform into ghostly apparitions suspended between abstraction and figuration.

The surreal and often unsettling compositions create psychological spaces between the conscious and unconscious, reality and imagination. Human and animal figures emerge as mysterious apparitions, evoking hidden fears, inner conflicts and primal impulses. The series embodies Ballen’s distinctive Ballenesque aesthetic, inviting viewers to explore the boundaries between the visible and the concealed.

In his series Spirits and Spaces, Roger Ballen expands his distinctive visual language through the use of colour, introducing a new dimension to his exploration of psychological and imaginary worlds. Having worked predominantly in black and white for decades, Ballen employs vivid colours to intensify the relationships between figures, objects and their surroundings. Carefully constructed environments become theatrical spaces in which reality and imagination merge.

The surreal and often unsettling compositions are populated by enigmatic figures, animals and objects, creating an atmosphere suspended between the familiar and the uncanny. Through the interplay of colour, form and spatial arrangement, Ballen explores the complexities of the human psyche, revealing hidden emotions, subconscious impulses and inner tensions. The series represents a further development of his distinctive Ballenesque aesthetic, challenging conventional perceptions of reality and inviting viewers into a world of psychological ambiguity.

Roger Ballen’s Vintage Silver Gelatin Prints offer insight into the early development of his photographic practice and highlight his longstanding exploration of light, form and composition. These analogue black-and-white photographs are characterised by strong contrasts, subtle tonal gradations and a distinctive material presence. As vintage prints, produced close to the time the original negatives were created, they maintain a direct connection to the artist’s original photographic process.

These early works reveal Ballen’s documentary roots while already anticipating the formal and psychological elements that would later define his distinctive visual language. Through carefully composed images, people, spaces and everyday situations are transformed into scenes suspended between observation and interpretation. The photographs thus move beyond the documentation of external reality, offering insight into the emergence of his unmistakable aesthetic, later known as Ballenesque.