Frank Balaam
I paint from a viewpoint which immerses the viewer in an impenetrable tangle of trees with no earth, no distance, no forest creatures and no visible path in or out. The solitary viewer is thus part of the timeless forest, rooted and growing inexorably.
Sold Works
Frank Balaam
Frank Balaam was born in the United Kingdom and attended Blackpool and Edinburgh Colleges of Fine Art. For the past 50 years, he has painted and traveled extensively including Europe, Africa, the Cook Islands, and the United States where he now resides in a small mountain town in Eastern Arizona. The Combination of classical training in the arts accompanied by a lifetime of experience painting portraits, murals, landscapes, figurative works culminate in his newest creative forests which radiate with the energy of passion and life. His art can be found and purchased at The Marshall Gallery of Fine Art.
Artist Statement
I paint from a viewpoint which immerses the viewer in an impenetrable tangle of trees with no earth, no distance, no forest creatures and no visible path in or out. The solitary viewer is thus part of the timeless forest, rooted and growing inexorably. By adopting a “reverse painting” technique, the light in my forests is imbued with substance instead of merely being a backdrop, or solely an illuminator of the subject.
First, I paint the immediate foreground, then I progress through midground and finally onto the distant pure light bursting through the leaves and branches as the last brushstrokes are applied. one of the effects of the last touches being thick dabs of color, is that they distort the edges of leaves and branches as if the light has physically muscled its way onto the foreground, scuffing off the color as it passes through the dense growth of the forest. I like the passion of oil paint, the surface, the thick brushstrokes loaded with pigment, the flamboyant interaction of colour, and I like it all to coalesce into an identifiable whole allowing the viewer to inhabit both journey and destination with barely a fractional alteration in perception.
Collections & Exhibits
Ritz Carlton, Boston
Chateau Lorane, Oregon
Shemer Museum
Arizona Capitol Gallery
Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport
Corporate collections of Morgan Stanley, McCormack & Dodge, Sakura International, Make-A-Wish Foundation, DHL Corporation
Private collections of Carlos Santana, Boy George, Edsel Ford II, Alfred Fiandaca, Sister Parish
Estate collections of The Grateful Dead, Rio Chico and Janis Joplin
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