The Balt GettY WALL
2019-2021
Bright, multicolored blocks zoom towards the viewer in several drawings dotting "The Balt Getty Wall", Balt's newest large-scale art piece. At first, these can be seen as simple exercises in one-point-perspective. In the context of the rest of the work, a bustling menagerie of subjects, they feel like a key.
The colored block are a visual microcosm for the large cluster of candy-colored, high gloss frames spreading out like the patchwork of a growing cityscape. "It's organized chaos!", Balt exclaims. For all its variation, however, the figures, trees, houses, whales, manatees, seahorses, turtles, bottles, pills, skulls and dollar bills that populate this piece originate from a single point: Balt's imagination.
The installation grew over a two year process in Balt's private studio on Fairfax, a slow (and secretive) operation of addictive, puzzle-like arrangement. Now installed in Richard Stark's new Malibu Colony home, The Balt Getty Wall has adapted from the verticality of the city to the horizontality of the Pacific Ocean. It's ability to rearrange itself according to new environments emphasizes the flexible nature and sense of play and openness that defines Balt's art-making process.
"You get to pull the curtain aside,
and look into my brain a bit."
- Balt Getty
"EVERYTHING PURRRP" declares one drawing, the words underlined by an oozing purple line and bracketed by a saturated purple frame.
The 56 works on paper, mounted like rare taxidermy beetles, index the influences of an artist exploring the inner reaches of his creativity - a realm where, to quote media theorist Bernhard Siegert, "The map is the territory."
The Balt Getty Wall
2019-2021