In that fabled place known as California, beyond the world of Hockney’s ever-warming sun, azure swimming pools and beautiful people, lies a land of darkness, hallucinatory apparitions and the hovering presence of decay and death. The Balmoral invites you to explore WESTERN LANDS. Taking its name from the 1987 William Burroughs novel completing the trilogy which began with Cities of the Red Night and Place of Dead Roads, the exhibition features works by Billy Al Bengston, Dave Deany, Steve Hurd, Benjamin Lord, Richard Louderback, Jason Meadows, Thaddeus Strode and Chris Wilder. As the title of Burrough’s novel alludes to the western bank of the Nile River, referred to in Egyptian mythology as the Land of The Dead, so do these artists masterfully conjure up worlds where lushness, hedonism, and appetite are permeated by a sense of unease and the overweening power of mysterious unseen forces.
Benjamin Lord, Untitled, 2007,
colour photograph, 68" x 49" framed
