Aleksander Balos

Aleksander Balos is a Polish artist and figurative painter, who lives in the United States and is a naturalised American.

Life and art

Aleksander Balos was born in 1970 in the town of Gliwice, Poland. His parents, Jan and Janina, were artists, who encouraged him to study art in Gliwice Art Center, while he was still in elementary school. He did his first painting lessons with his father’s oil paints. In 1989 he went to the United States to attend St Joseph High School in Kenosha, Wisconsin. There he met with an artist, and his high school art teacher, Kathy Gagliardi, who encouraged him to attend an art school.

Balos received a full scholarship to Cardinal Stritch University in Milwaukee WI, where he studied painting and drawing with Philosophy Professor Garry Rosine. After completing his BFA, and having his first museum show at The Charles Allis Art Museum in 1995 Balos relocated to Chicago to study in the atelier program at the School of Representational Art with Bruno Surdo and Mike Chelich, where he studied drawing and painting of the human form. In 1998, he exhibited his triptych Last Supper at Ann Nathan Gallery in Chicago. Figurative realism and portraiture constituted most of the body of Balos' work in the '90s and early 2000s. During that time, Balos returned frequently to Europe to research painting techniques and contents of the old masters' paintings. Balos' work utilizes human figure to portray various ideals and faults of human existence without suggesting solutions. The narrative compositions are intended to be interpreted by the audience, as only then the paintings gain their temporary and subjective meaning. In addition, in Chicago, Balos became an American citizen.

Since 1997 Balos has been represented by the Ann Nathan Gallery in Chicago, where he has held five solo exhibitions. Since 2000 Balos has contributed work to art gallery shows in New York, Atlanta, Chicago, Paris, Utrecht and Barcelona; and for art fairs such as The Armory Show in NY, Art Chicago, Palm Beach3, WWK Biennale in Munich, and the Royal Academy's Summer Show in London.

In 2005 Balos relocated to Northern California and since then his body of work has expanded to include looser applications, utilizing abstractions and multi-media techniques and styles. Balos is also teaching drawing and painting privately at his atelier named ArtRoster in California, where they hold Annual Forgery Shows on April 1 of each year.

Solo exhibitions

I've been there, oil painting on linen, 36 x 54 inch by Aleksander Balos

Group exhibitions

Acceptance, oil painting on linen, 36 x 66 inch by Aleksander Balos

Distinctions

Publications

Nothing is Changing, oil painting on linen 36 x 66 inch by Aleksander Balos

Notes and references

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