The Vinyls — 1997-1999
The Vinyls explore qualities of light on pliable, undulating surfaces. It is as if these works hanging loosely on three metal clamps offer a window onto the outside world. A flight of birds against the blue sky – interrupted by the horizontal and vertical lines so typical of Balth.
Up close you can see the enormous colorful pixels, reminiscent of the 19th century Pointillism of Seurat – a painter who also focused on perception. Although Balth shows a piece of reality (a marble or a flight of birds), the image has a poetic abstraction.
Balth in The Vinyls used the same process of the dot-shooting of colour, not on canvas, as with the Laser Paintings, but on vinyl, which keeps the tiny dots intact and produces a ‘pointillist’ merger of colours on the retina.
He thereby draws the viewer into a playful mobility between close-up and distance, while simultaneously conjuring up a new imagery on the edge of recognisability.
The search for the deeper qualities of light and reflection, coupled with a pliable, undulating surface and often contemplative mood, invokes a Proustian search for lost time.