A L E K S A N D E R    B A L O S

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Chicago-based painter Aleksander Balos articulates the figure with an empathetic understanding of the human figure. Meticulously crafted skin tones contain the profound suggestion of human frailty. Balos pares down the language of painting, limiting his figures to sparse architectural environments and communicating eloquently through the subtle nuances of the human form.

The men and women in Aleksander Balos' baroque, figurative works are always in a state of dynamic flux.  On the verge of altering their movements at any moment in reaction to what is happening around them, his people are perhaps a reflection of the unexpected personal changes that have shaped the life of this formidable Chicago-based artist who is receiving wide recognition. 

Balos moved to the U.S. from Poland in 1989.  A significant cultural transition in its own right for a young man, it would not match the personal metamorphosis that would affect him.  Though his father was an active amateur painter and art had filled the Balos home in Poland, it was not until his untapped drawing skills were encouraged by his new high school art teacher that Balos seriously thought about a career in art.  Refocused on a goal that would have seemed unlikely for a person who previously thought he could never learn to draw a face, he attended college and began seriously pursuing his passion for the human figure.

Contemporary, enigmatic parables on human conflict, Balos' luminous and volumetric depictions of the human form are indebted to his study of Renaissance and Baroque paintings.  Evoking the spirit of these early styles, he uses the  language of representational art to engage the broadest audience possible. He transforms his intense personal feelings and ideas about the complexities of human relationships into emotionally charged, universal metaphors.

Actions and reactions dominate his works.  These exchanges refer to both Balos' structured formal rhythms established through dramatic uses of light and shadow, space and mass, as well as the exaggerated movements of his figures.  Tightly organized in the stabilizing compositional device of the triangle, these clusters of nude and semi-clothed men and women are, in many respects, anonymous individuals whose personal identity is defined by the coordinated, yet irregular, behavior of the group.

A poetic limbo haunts compositions such as Indifference.  Geometric lines created by the bodies of four athletic people (three men and a woman) convey the strain of physical movements that, ultimately, reflect their indecision.  Balos uses these lines to deftly lead our eye at a downward angle through the work.  The movement starts with the head of a standing man who strains on a makeshift harness. Supported by this rope is a man who is oblivious to what is occurring. Turning away and bent over in anguish is the third man, shielding his eyes.  Witnessing the scene from the foreground, her back to the viewer, is a crouching, nude woman. Balos strikingly breaks up the triangular shapes created by the men's bodies through the circular, womb-like shape created by the woman's arched back and curved arm.  It is the unknown woman's body which visually overlaps and, consequently, symbolically unites this otherwise fractured group.

Seen from below and framed against a natural sky, the psychological and emotional tensions of the  figures' precarious physical situations are heightened by their evolving relationship to a horizontal, architectural edge.  Subtle in its presence, the edge initiates the dynamic spatial interactions that build into the unique cyclical energy of his enmeshed figures.  Putting the Night to Sleep is a work that makes dramatic use of this compositional device.  Three figures lower a limp woman over the edge into the foreboding darkness of the foreground, made all the more unnerving by the twilight lighting of the painting.

Drawing, the foundation of all classical art training, fuels Balos' conceptual and technical approaches to his imagery.  His complex scenes are born in the spontaneity of small sketches used to capture the immediacy of his thoughts.  Larger, more detailed drawings are developed to refine the composition and to assist him in photographing models for more specific drawings.

Balos will accentuate various parts of the design -- anatomy, pose, facial expression -- all to bring his original concept into being. These elements emphasize his commitment to observation, but only in support of his overall, personal vision.  It is Balos' ability to maintain the vitality of his initial inspiration, in spite of the rigors of his process, that marks his accomplishment as a vital contributor to contemporary realism.

John Brunetti 
Chicago art critic and Illinois Editor of dialogue

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