Sarah Ball makes her debut in Asia with her first institutional solo exhibition, presenting eight new portraits that probe the notion of identity. The British artist, known for her refined and suspended style of painting, depicts enigmatic figures that appear both near and unattainable, rendered with meticulous makeup and garments that recall the elegance of 1930s cinema. Her inquiry begins with the conviction that identity is not a fixed trait but a continuous construction - a play of postures, silences, and gazes reflecting social codes and individual desires. The exhibition’s title evokes David Bowie and his ability to reinvent himself through performative personas such as the Thin White Duke, anticipating Judith Butler’s reflections on gender performativity. In the same spirit, Ball explores how the self is built and dissolved in the space between image and perception. In works like Henry with Iris, the subject’s “unfinished” hands become a symbol of fluidity and of an identity never fully graspable. Having exhibited in London and New York in recent years, Ball continues to pursue a painterly research that blends intimacy and detachment, investigating the human face as a surface of infinite metamorphoses.
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