“Please join us for a glass of wine on Thursday the 28th of January at 6:30pm for the opening of Night + Day by Aldo Balding“, reads the invite from Christopher Moller Gallery.
This will be the artist’s third annual solo exhibition in South Africa, proudly hosted by the Christopher Moller Gallery.
Aldo Balding was born and raised in the United Kingdom and currently lives in Castelnaudary in the South of France. He started off his career as an illustrator before moving to France to become a full-time artist. He is represented by a number of galleries around the world, in countries such as the United Kingdom, United States of America, France and South Africa.
Ashraf Jamal in his article Aldo Balding – Invented Light, writes:
Three painters have proved to be Aldo Balding’s greatest inspiration, the American John Singer Sargent (1856-1925), the Swede Anders Zorn (1860-1920), and the Spaniard Joaquin Sorolla (1863-1923). What is so striking is how their life spans coincide – they belong to the same age, marred at its core by the ‘Great War’ the shocking consequence of which, as the anthropologist James Clifford put it, would make the Western world permanently surreal.
Light is at the core of Balding’s paintings, a light as visceral as it is psychological and metaphoric, a light which illuminates the world and banishes darkness. This seduction – the seduction of light – is also central to the work of all Balding’s inspirational artists. Without light, life is hollowed out, plunged into darkness. Without light, after Immanuel Kant, we cannot know ourselves, know others.
One gets a sense of timelessness with his work; he creates a sense of nostalgia, how it is human nature to look back at the past with a certain sense of ease that life was simpler.
WHAT: night + day by Aldo Balding
WHEN: Opening Thursday 28th January at 6:30pm (Exhibition concludes 11th March)
WHERE: Christopher Moller Gallery – 7 Kloofnek Road, Gardens, 8001
Parking: Secure parking available at the Jan van Riebeeck School grounds – opposite the gallery
