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JACKROAD Artist Blog

Welcome.

Jack Balas is an artist originally based in Chicago and Los Angeles, who divides his time between painting, drawing and photography, cross-referenced at times with writing and other media . A recipient in 1995 of an Individual Fellowship in Painting from the National Endowment for the Arts, he is represented in the permanent collections of the National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.), the Brooklyn Museum of Art (New York), the Denver Art Museum, the Tucson Museum of Art, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, among others.  A portfolio of his paintings "Today I Drove Along the Rio Grande" was published in issue #120 of The Paris Review (New York). His 2008 museum solo project "We'll Be Seeing You" appeared at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver. In 2014-2016 and in 2022-2023 he exhibited work in group shows sponsored by the US State Department's Art in Embassies Program, at the United States Embassies in Vienna, Austria, and Stockholm, Sweden. In 2017 his large solo show "Maine And Again" appeared at the University of Maine Museum of Art in Bangor, Maine, and in 2019 his solo "Against the Grain: Men, Maps and Other Incorrections" was featured at the Gallery of Art at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls, Iowa.

This website includes a broad spectrum of the artwork divided into individual media in the above navigation bar. You can read an artist statement and get an overview of the work by taking a TOUR.  The newest painting and photo work is in the black area below, while a few other highlights from the past are in the adjacent gray.

CURRENT SHOWS & NEWS _______________________________     APPEARING IN THE WINTER 2024 PHYSIQUE PICTORIAL from the BOB MIZER FOUNDATION ________________________________   SOLO SHOW: JACK BALAS: SOME DAYS (I JUST WANT TO PAINT) JANUARY 11- MARCH, 2024 JACK BALAS CLAMP 247 WEST 29TH ST NEW YORK, NY 10001   READING IN THE GALLERY WITH SPECIAL GUEST DUANE MICHALS SATURDAY JANUARY 13, at 4pm _______________________________     SOLO SHOW: OCTOBER 27-- DECEMBER 3, 2023 JACK BALAS AND WES HEMPEL FRONT RANGE, BACK TO BACK WILLIAM HAVU GALLERY 1040 Cherokee St. Denver, CO 80204   ___________________________   AD_MISSION (Those ads in ArtForum) JackRoad Blog Entry ________________________  "The surfaces of your wry, ruminative paintings hold light wonderfully, and your references to Wyeth and Homer give a poignant new perspective on Americana. I've enjoyed reading...the riffs and reinterpretations of gallery press materials and museum wall labels. In a way, they conflate exhibitions of the last 20 years with earnest, personal distractions and mundanities, which is what looking at art is all about." James Rondeau President and Director, Art Institute of Chiacgo (Feb, 2022)   ________________________     2022 -- 2024 United States Embassy Vienna, Austria and United States Embassy Stockholm, Sweden US Department of State Art in Embassies Program   _______________________   AND SO DID PLEASURE TAKE THE HAND OF SORROW, AND THEY WANDERED THROUGH THE LAND OF JOY: A LEGACY OF MARSDEN HARTLEY (Group exhibition) October 28, 2022--March 18, 2023 Bates Museum of Art Bates College Lewiston, Maine   _______________________ SPEAKEASY ­ A proposal to support artists from auctions   ____________________________     SOLO SHOW: NOVEMBER, 2020--JANUARY, 2021 JACK BALAS: COMMON GROUND: PAINTINGS FOR AMERICA WILLIAM HAVU GALLERY 1040 Cherokee St. Denver, CO 80204 Reviewed in The Denver Post by Ray Mark Rinaldi   __________________________   SOLO SHOW: JANUARY 9--FEBRUARY 29, 2020 JACK BALAS: CHECKERED PASSED CLAMP ART 247 WEST 29TH ST NEW YORK, NY 10001   REVIEWED IN WALL STREET INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE   SEE EXHIBITION INSTALLATION PHOTOS _________________________   SOLO SHOW: AUGUST 19 --OCTOBER 5, 2019 JACK BALAS: AGAINST THE GRAIN: MEN, MAPS AND OTHER INCORRECTIONS Gallery of Art University of Northern Iowa, CATALOG AVAILABLE: Catalog for the solo exhibition available at BLURB.com               ___________________________ : SOLO SHOW: JACK BALAS: MAINE AND AGAIN University of Maine Museum of Art Bangor, Maine September 15--December 22, 2017 EXHIBITION PHOTOGRAPHS Catalog available from Blurb   ____________________________ RADIO INTERVIEW ON THE 2015 SOLO SHOW: "ART BEAT" with KATHRYN DAVIS KVSF 101.5 FM October 29, 2015 PODCAST LINK HERE __________________ GUY'D BOOK An introduction to the Paintings, Drawings, Photo and Writing. 160 pages availabl;e at BLURB.com _______________________________   YouTube Interview from solo show in Barcelona, 2009       New Essay on JACKROAD: WHERE'S THE BEEF? A LOOK FOR (AND LACK OF) THE MALE EROTIC IMAGE IN CONTEMPORARY ART. IS THE TERM "HOMO-EROTIC" PEJORATIVE?   "An important issue I hadn't thought much about." --Lucy Lippard, Independent Critic & Curator "I read with great interest." -- Raphael Rubinstein, Contributing Editor, Art In America "You are a good writer." --William Morrow, Curator, Denver Art Museum "I was happy to pass it on to Okwui Enwezor, who took an intense look at it." --Dr. Sonja Teine, Assistant to Director Okwui Enwezor, Haus der Kunst, Munich ____________________________ From the archive: LOGAN LECTURE (Artist Talk) Sharp Auditorium Denver Art Museum Denver, CO ______________________        The BROOKLYN MUSEUM, New York City, has recently acquired two pieces from the MUSE / MUSEUM series for its permanent collection. __________________	x         Jack Balas, 2025 LISTENING FOR HAMMERS (#2769, 2604) India ink and acrylic on paper, 24x18 inches Text: He came out of Home Depot and started to pitch 50-lb. bundles of roofing shingles into the back of his pickup. I couldn't make myself go into the store until he finished and drove away. When I came out later I drove around some neighborhoods under construction looking for him, and when I got home I started cutting open a pile of t-shirts, liste (This last day of June 2024, and April 27, 202 Current Paintings:  2024 -- 2025   xx             QUICK TOUR: MULTI-YEAR SURVEY OF PAINTINGS & DRAWINGS                     TATTOO DETOUR 18: NOW BOARDING Drawings From Honolulu 2025             MUSE / MUSEUM SERIES All years 2006 - 2025                                       THE 2020 COMPANY SERIES A Response to the Global Covid-19 Pandemic                     THE DRAWING ROOM                      JackRoad: Artist Blog xx             New Photo Constructions   xxxx       www.JackBalas.com: BACK TO BACK OF THE YARDS: Collage from Southside Chicag
CATALOG ESSAY for "DECADES OF INFLUENCE" and "EXTENDED REMIX" Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver "Artist and catalogue contributor Jack Balas captures the boom mood in his poetic essay about being a laborer for hire. His description of driving across the country as an art shipper in the 80's expresses the increasing vulnerability of the artist through a portrait of the landscape. Looking in the rearview mirror suggests that the 90's represented the point of no return for the contemporary art world." Cydney Payton, Executive Director / Chief Curator, MoCA Denver. _________________	x   "WE'LL BE SEEING YOU" : PROJECT AND SOLO EXHIBITION MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART, DENVER (Summer, 2008)
highlights FROM THE ARCHIVE:		All contents of this site © 2002--2025 by Jack Balas.
QUICK TOUR: MULTI-YEAR SURVEY OF PAINTINGS & DRAWINGS x	STUD DUST A series of photographs A.K.A. "Studio Men"   x	THE OBERDICK CHAISE and other sculpture     NOW ON THE SITE: 1980's - 1990's PAINTINGS LANDSCAPE TEXT COLLAGE OTHER COOL STUFF