Growing Pains

Laura Ball, 2010, giclee print, edition of 50, 22 x 30 inches, © 2010, courtesy of David B. Smith Gallery and the artist.
In her intricate watercolor paintings, Laura Ball portrays a colorful tangle of creatures that weave their way into our consciousness. She charts a course through our dreams and memories to environmental values long neglected.

In these works, Ball is not offering a simple celebration of the animal kingdom. She is exploring the relationship between humans and our fellow creatures and highlighting tensions and recurring failures in our stewardship of nature.
In a series of works from 2008 and 2009, Ball depicts humans, adorned with animal masks, riding astride wild animals, as if in a carousel. She alludes to a shared journey in these works, but it is a journey in which the animals, at the wrong end of a power struggle, seem unlikely to control their own fate.