Carel Balth

Carel Balth (Rotterdam, November 25, 1939 – Vreeland, July 10, 2019)^[1] was a Dutch artist and curator.^[2] He was self-taught and lived and worked in the Netherlands and Italy. Between 1987 and 1999 he worked regularly from his studio in White Street in New York. The main themes in his work are light, time, space and movement.^[3] Balth has made many different kinds of works in his career, but his hallmark is exploring the intersections between abstract photography, painting and new media.^[4]

• 60s/70s: Light Objects

In the late 1960s, he began with the abstract Light Objects, made of crystal-clear plexiglass, sometimes combined with metal bands. By cutting the material and then projecting artificial light onto the object, he creates special light and shadow lines and shapes on the wall, creating a new composition. He had several exhibitions at the avant-garde Galerie Swart in Amsterdam. Mondriaan and Lucio Fontana are important for the development of his work. The straight line, which divides and connects at the same time, is an element that recurs throughout Balth's oeuvre.

• 70s/80s: Abstract Photography

Balth uses various techniques to delve into the interplay of light and time. In the 70s and 80s, photography played a major role in this. He is one of the pioneers of abstract photography.^[5]

By photographing the same architectural form by day and night in his Light Photo Works, he connects daylight with artificial light, reality with abstraction. In The New Collage he captures the light on beautiful foil, stuck to a corner of an exterior wall. Later, he incorporates the same foil into the print of the photo. In doing so, he creates a special interplay between the three-dimensionality of the photographed subject and the final collage on the flat surface. The photo becomes an object. In his Polaroid Paintings, Balth edits the Polaroid photos with his nails during the development process, leaving his signature on an image that does not yet exist at that time.

• The 90s: New techniques

In his Laser Paintings, Balth experiments with new light: laser. He uses this technique to 'paint' on canvas, a medium with which he once started his career as a painter in 1967. In his series of laser paintings 'The Touch', Balth uses the brushstrokes of the French Impressionist Monet, which he magnifies 2500 times. An ode to the French master who, like Balth, but some 100 years earlier, was always looking for light and the effect of light in his work. In 1997, Balth brought his research into light and reflection to The Vinyls, large pieces of canvas hanging off the wall with poetic semi-abstract images on them.

• 2001-2019: Videowatercolors^[6]

Since 2001, Balth has been using two or more moments from a digital video in the Videowatercolors, which he freezes in time, as it were. By combining these different 'video grabs' in 1 print, a new, often painterly image is created, which connects space and time. Always separated by a horizontal or vertical line, Balth combines two different moments from time, which he brings together in 1 image. The images from the videos Balth chooses often have the fluid effect of watercolour on paper. Hence the term 'videowatercolors'. Light, movement and the passage of time are important elements in this series.