Henry Ballate, more than an artist, a person with a different perspective on life, a person who truly believes in the power of his imagination and translates that into sensational works of art.
AQ: Who is Henry Ballate and where does he come from?
HB: I was born in the midst of chaos and confusion, it was already past “White on White”, and someone had already proclaimed that there was nothing more to paint. I was born after the second “urinal” and that’s too much to say. My journey began in a distant and isolated island. I have literally crossed rivers, mountains and oceans to get here.
AQ: What influences you?
HB: I work in an art form that deals with past and present, from the museum to the screen, mixing traditional methods of painting with the implementation of innovative techniques giving birth to new works that are rooted in art history while retaining contemporary relevance. Observing the works of art using the computer gives me the possibility of walking onto the piece and stop on those little fragments, which provoke and excite me. This is something that gives me a mysterious satisfaction; I feel like a thief in a museum, a thief with a mission; feeling like I’m vandalizing artworks, but also recovering them at the same time. I bring them out from the darkness of the museum, releasing them from their Baroque frames and bringing them to our context.
AQ: Where do you find inspiration?
HB: Artists like Caravaggio, Courbet, Duchamp, Warhol and Mapplethorpe are a few of the artists that I draw inspiration from.
AQ: What things helped to shape you?
HB: Education, practice, perseverance and my desire to keep learning.
AQ: At what point in your life did you decide you wanted to be a fine artist?
HB: Shortly after learning to walk and before getting to my first museum
AQ: What has been the single biggest obstacle against growing up as a painter?
HB: Time, space and money
AQ: Do you think yourself as an artist? and what do you think of the word “art”?
HB: When I was 18, I considered myself one of the most important artists of this time, and I am already past forty and still consider myself one.
AQ: If you had to reveal a secret what would it be?(something nobody knows about you)
HB: I am a pirate.
Henry’s work can be found on Miami Art Studio
