Encompass

Allen Ball is currently Associate Professor, Painting, and Associate Chair of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Art and Design at the University of Alberta. Over the past 20 years, his work has been grounded primarily in the practice of painting, interrogating the limits of its forms and extending the language of painting into an expanded field of inquiry. Recent projects include: “The Wordless Book and other sounds” (2010), a series of paintings that interrogates the associative power of colour through Baptist preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon’s nonverbal evangelical device the Wordless Book; “The German Autumn in Minor Spaces” (2008), a photographic and screen-based collaboration with Dr. Kimberly Mair (Department of Sociology, University of Lethbridge), pertaining to the ideological struggles of the Red Army Faction or Baader-Meinhof Gang; and, “Spectacle in a State of Exception” (2007), a multi-media project stemming from research conducted as an embedded official Canadian War Artist with Canadian Forces Operation Calumet in the Sinai Peninsula.

Encompass is nine large, round canvases that hang in the foyer of the Southeast Division Police Station. The imagery is derived from global culture and represents a wide range of art and craft including ceramic, glass, metal and fabric designs from international museums’ collections. For example, “Morocco” is based on an arabesque design in blue and white glaze in the British Museum’s study collection. The digitally manipulated designs were printed on canvas and over-painted in high quality artist’s paint. The paintings are displayed on a wall in the main lobby of the police station. The circular format echoes the curved architectural design elements of the building and the shape of the earth, both symbolically and metaphorically. Painted by Edmonton artist Allen Ball, the inspiration for the artwork is “derived from global culture and represent a wide range of art and craft practice.” He describes the Police Station as being “the centre of a complex, modern, multicultural community” and reflects this dynamic in his paintings.