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Palma.—Last night the Coll Bardolet Foundation was pleased to have introduced Kira Ball's latest body of work.
Through her latest exhibition, ‘Blossom', Kira Ball seduces us with a new Limoges porcelain installation, using a medium through which her work effortlessly flourishes, in white hues inspired by Coll Bardolet's famous white paintings. The Coll Bardolet cultural foundation's director, Amanda Corral, has commissioned ‘Blossom' to open a cycle of annual artistic interventions which re-examine the celebrated Catalan painter's work through the eyes of talented contemporary artists.

Kira Ball's work was selected to pay tribute to Coll Bardolet's series of white paintings, referred to by the history of art and art critic Giralt-Miracle as “symphonies in white …a playful collection of shadows attempting to catch the light reflected on the white surfaces, a whiteness which both attracts and radiates light”.

The delicate, sharp, fragile edges composing the mobile-installations by Ball, cut through and flourish in the spaces they inhabit; impossibly fine porcelain leaves and entangled weaving threads of steel wire branches stir and fold space, extending and reaching through their own shadows in the search for freedom and a life-source; the light emanating through the museum's skylight.

50 pieces
The latest work by Kira Ball, created ex profeso for the cultural foundation of Coll Bardolet, on the occasion of the centenary of the Catalonian artist, is composed of 50 pieces of hand-made porcelain created by Ball at her dedicated ceramics workshop and 300 kilograms of steel. The natural light emanating from the museum's skylight skims the surfaces within its interior and is assimilated by Ball's sculpture - inspiring and articulating the narrative of the work in one voice.

Kira Ball was born in Sóller in 1976. She currently lives and works in Binissalem. She studied fine arts at one of the most prestigious academic institutions in Britain, Camberwell College of Arts, University of Arts London, where she achieved a BA (Hons) in contemporary ceramics. Her work centres around the construction of large format, monochromatic installations and mobiles, where white predominates. The noble, pure tones of the Limoges porcelain allow her to capture the fluctuating light and shadows so characteristic of the Mediterranean landscape.

Kira Ball began her professional career in 2009, when she was chosen by the selection committee of La Caja Blanca, as their candidate for the Noves Presencies programme, in virtue of her “refined technical knowledge, her poetic sensibility, and a surprising capacity for innovation arising from her dedication to experimenting with traditional materials”.

Noves Presencies is an annual initiative driven by the Council of Majorca and the AIGAB association of gallerists to nurture the professional trajectory of the most talented young artists on the island.

Grateful
In the same year, she created her most significant work to-date - a grand-scale mobile for the internal courtyard of Can Marqués - coinciding with La Nit de l'Art '09, which was also incorporated into the touring programme of the Council of Majorca, at La Misericordia.

In 2010 she presented her third monographic project at the hall in Sa Quartera, Inca, composed of over 700 pieces of Limoges porcelain pieces.
The Coll Bardolet cultural foundation was constituted in January 2005, thanks to the artist Josep Coll Bardolet's desire to bequeath part of his private collection to the area where he had lived since 1944, Valldemossa. This is why the headquarters of The Coll Bardolet Cultural Foundation is based in the centre of the village.

The primary objectives of the foundation are to preserve, exhibit and communicate the pictorial works of Josep Coll Bardolet, as much as his private collection belonging to the foundation, and the fine arts. The foundation will hold a series of events throughout 2012, with a view to commemorate the centenary of Coll Bardolet's birth, within the framework of the Council of Majorca's “Año Josep Coll Bardolet” (The Josep Coll Bardolet Year), with support from the Valldemossa town hall and in collaboration with the Govern Balear, amongst other institutions, private companies and artists.

The Coll Bardolet foundation is profoundly grateful to Kira Ball for taking up the challenge of developing a project designed specifically for the museum, and which also touches on one of the most loved and prized works by Coll Bardolet, his white paintings, to begin the Josep Coll Bardolet Year.

The Foundation has no doubt that Kira Ball's work will surprise and connect with all visitors. The exhibition runs until May 29.