Sarah Ball joined Stephen Friedman Gallery’s artist roster.
Portrait of Sarah Ball at her studio. Courtesy Sarah Ball and Stephen Friedman Gallery, London.
The British painter Sarah Ball has joined Stephen Friedman Gallery’s artist roster. Ball, who is best known for her work in portraiture, will have her first presentation with the gallery as part of its forthcoming Art Basel in Miami Beach online viewing room.
Ball’s intimate, soft-focus portraits often feature subjects that the artist finds in newspaper clippings, archival photographs, or social media. Her paintings tend to gravitate toward subjects whose presentation lies outside traditional gender binaries, with Ball highlighting the individual personalities of her anonymous sitters through the specificity of their facial expressions, hairstyles, and fashion choices.
She has exhibited widely at venues including Victoria Miro, Half Gallery, and the Royal Academy of Arts in London. Her work has been acquired by institutions such as the British Museum, the Kistefos Museum in Norway, the Rachofsky Collection in Dallas, and the Grace Museum in Abilene, Texas.
According to Artsy data, Ball’s work saw a steady increase in demand over the past five years, until a dip in 2019. In 2020, inquiries on her work are trending up again and are on pace to double 2019’s total count, setting a new high water mark in interest for Ball’s work on the platform.
