Winkleman Gallery is very pleased to present “50/50,” our first solo exhibition of paintings by New York artist Ivin Ballen. Featuring a brilliant new series of paintings, and a triptych incorporating an operating stereo system, Ballen offers an insightful and humorous exploration of our relationships to everyday materials via painting.

Composing maquettes from cardboard, duct tape, plastic bottles, garbage bags, and other recyclable commonplace items, Ballen casts fiberglass and aqua resin sculptures of their negative space that he then paints with acrylic and watercolor paints, often with trompe l’oeil passages that reference the original found objects. Although the illusion is temporarily quite convincing, closer inspection of the paintings reveals subtle differences in textures and colors that expose the process, reinforcing Ballen’s central investigation of the act of looking and perceiving.