BRIAN Ballard's style is a little predictable these days, but there is no doubt at all that he is completely master of a certain technique and way of working, and inside that area he performs always with professionalism and sometimes with genuine aplomb. The long, elegant, loaded brushstrokes, the bright, dabbed on highlights, the rather "high" colour palette, are there to be sensuously enjoyed, and perhaps that is largely because Ballard communicates a conscious pleasure in the very act of painting.
Looking recently through a new book on Scottish painting, I was struck once again (I have thought the same at various times in the past) how close he is both in style and mentality to the Scottish Colourists earlier in the century: Peploe, Cadell, Ferguson etc. They, of course, were heavily influenced by French art by Manet, Matisse, and van Dongen notably, but they were not mere provincial echoes of it. They tuned to their own bravura note, and though Ballard is a rather more subdued painter, he inhabits the same tropic.
The present exhibition, at the Solomon contains still life, nudes, landscapes, and, some skilfully handled pictures which depict objects jars, a jug of flowers against the backdrop of the summer sea, as though standing, on a windowsill or just inside an open window. There are other straightforward sea pieces, including a ruggedly direct view of sea cliffs at Cill Rialaig, in Ballinskelligs, where Ballard has worked recently in the local artists studios.
This is obviously not paint which searches deeply, but is the work of a man who has mastered his trade and is a thorough craftsman, some times more than that. Neither does he stand still he has enriched his colour sense greatly inside the last four to five years. Conventional, perhaps, but that too, in good hands, can be an asset rather than a weakness.
