NetWorks Rhode Island and the Chazan Collection Exhibition, WaterFire Arts Center (2024) Bio:
Boris Bally is a Swiss-trained goldsmith working as a contemporary metalsmith and designer Rhode Island, where he maintains his studio business, Bally Humanufactured. Bally’s work is a disciplined body of objects which vary from eccentric through formal to humorous, provoking thought and reflecting on some of the distortions of our ordered world. Over four decades, his practice has become an amalgam of the skills of an able industrial designer, a gifted craftsperson, a discriminating sculptor and a cultural critic. For years, he has been organizing major art exhibitions facilitating political activism to end gun violence.
Bally was interviewed for the Smithsonian Institution’s, “Archives of American Art: Oral History Project.” His work has been featured in numerous international and national exhibitions and prominent publications. Public collections include London’s Victoria & Albert Museum, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Museum of Art & Design New York, Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, Brooklyn Museum, The Smithsonian American Art Museum’s collections housed in the Luce Foundation Center for American Art, Renwick Gallery and the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum. His artwork has earned him numerous state fellowship grants in design and crafts including an International Design Resource Award, the Felissimo Design Award from the New York Foundation for the Arts, a Green Dot Award, Second Prize in the Fortunoff Silver: New Forms and Expressions II, the Visual Arts Achievement Award from the Arts & Business Council of Rhode Island, and a Society of North American Goldsmiths Volunteer Recognition Award.
Original NetWorks Catalogue Bio:
A Pittsburgh native, Boris Bally received a BFA in metals from Carnegie Mellon University. Not afraid to take on the “form versus function” dilemma, Bally is a master of blending fine craft and popular culture. His work is both witty and innovative, employing the use of jeweler’s skills on non-precious materials. His current body of work transforms recycled street signs, weapon parts, and a wide variety of found materials into objects for reflection. These pieces celebrate raw American street aesthetic in the form of object, often useful, for the home and body. Bally has won numerous awards—he just received the 2015 RISCA Fellowship in Craft, led many visiting artist workshops, and exhibited nationally and internationally. His work is included in the Renwick Gallery, National Museum of American Art, and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, among many other venues.
Source: NetWorks 2013 – 2014 Catalogue
Aluminum platters, hand spun, fabricated, pierced, riveted, 25.5 x 3 in.
Credits:
Video:
Richard Goulis
Paul Marsella
Executive Producer: Joseph A. Chazan, M.D.
Additional Resources:
Artist’s website: borisbally.com
Highlighting the work of selected artists who have played vital roles in shaping the contemporary visual arts community in Rhode Island. This collection of brief video portraits provides a window into the lives, practices, and cultural contributions of professional artists.
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