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Lauren Ball (b. 1980, Chicago, IL) is a painter who lives and works in New York. Her work and research in painting is anchored in her everyday access to drawing, digital image-making, iPhone snapshots, and painting alchemy. There is nothing inherently narrative about her work. Ball’s paintings are a nod to the art history canon - they function on formal, aesthetic, social, and material terms, and their effects translate beyond the painting process.
Ball earned her MFA from New York University in Studio Art (2020) and her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2004). Ball also holds an additional Masters in Art Education from Columbia College Chicago (2015). Ball has lectured extensively on her work and contemporary issues at Columbia College Chicago, The College of DuPage, Roosevelt University, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago Alumni Association, and New York University.
Selected solo and group exhibitions include: ‘Synergy’ (2021), Monica King Projects and Voltz Clarke Gallery, New York, NY; ‘Thresholds’ (2021), Monica King Projects, New York, NY; Intersect Aspen (2020), Monica King Contemporary, Aspen, CO; ‘Shape Duration’ (2019), and ‘Tulpamancy’ (2018), Gallery 80WSE, New York, NY; ‘UNTITLED(House)’ (2018), The Illinois State Museum, Lockport, IL; ‘Resurface’ (2017), SideCar Gallery, Hammond, IN; ‘Old Dynamite’ (2016), FreeRange Gallery, Chicago, IL; Hyde Park Art Center Gala and Auction (2016), Chicago, IL; ‘This Particular Patch’ (2013), Gowanus Ballroom, Brooklyn, NY; and ‘In Progress’ (2008), The University of New Orleans, LA.
Ball has been reviewed and profiled in publications such as the New York Times, NewCity Art, Nine Lives Magazine (online French publication), Studio Visit Magazine, and featured in the Northwest Indiana Times. Her awards include: an Artist Fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA, 2021); The Martin Wong Scholarship at New York University (2019-2020); Art Intensive MFA Department Scholarship (2019-2020) New York University; Steinhardt Graduate Scholarship (2018-2020); The Yale-Norfolk Scholarship awarded by the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2002); The Fursman Scholarship at Ox-Bow (2001), awarded by The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.