David B. Smith Gallery

Within the subconscious, our faults and fears, shortcomings and struggles, manifest in corporeal form and appear in dreams either as monsters or as encounters that threaten our survival. We journey inward in these dreams, crossing the thresholds and boundaries of our mental landscape until we reach the core of the psyche. It is in this realm that life-saving and sustaining battles unfold, and the monsters we encounter change before us as the definition of evil and good moves from black-and-white to shades of gray. The primal nature of our internal impulses and their dream-world expressions are given the freedom to unfold in a place where moral weight and the laws of physics are suspended, and acts of aggression, violence and sexuality serve as productive steps towards conquering our Jungian “shadow” and slaying the monsters that hold us back from a healthy progression in our daily lives.

Laura Ball's work combines her technical achievements in watercolor with an ongoing part-psychoanalytical, part-environmental project she has explored over the last ten years. A recipient of numerous awards and grants, Ball has exhibited in galleries across the United States and internationally. Her work is in important private and public collections, including recent additions to the Denver Art Museum and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). Ball received her MFA in 2004 from the University of California, Berkeley. Ball lives and works in San Diego, California.