Stepping into the Reynolds Gallery on a warm July afternoon, I was immediately transported into the evocative landscapes of Andras Bality‘s “Outskirts.” A Richmond native and Virginia Commonwealth University alumnus, Bality brings the rugged beauty of Southwest Virginia and the serene waters of Maine to life through his distinctive oil paintings.
Attending the exhibition and the artist’s talk on July 18 provided insight into the complexity of his artistic vision—where each stroke on the canvas speaks to broader questions of what it means to paint a place.
As I entered the gallery, the soft hum of conversation filled the air. Visitors, seemingly transported by the paintings, discussed their memories of the locations depicted—the serene lakes, rolling mountains, and tranquil plains.
In this review, I’ll explore how “Outskirts” captures the physical essence of these varied landscapes and invites the viewers into a dialogue with the canvas. Bality’s work urges us to reflect on our interactions with the natural world and the art that represents it. It prompts reevaluating how we see, feel, and remember landscapes.
The exhibition space, filled with Bality’s landscape oil paintings, offered an immediate sense of nostalgia. The soft paintings, encased in floater frames, invited close inspection. The gentle brushstrokes and muted, pastel palette created a calming atmosphere, yet there was something more beneath the surface.
The initial tranquility gave way to a deeper engagement as I observed how the lack of defined lines and shapes in the compositions prompted viewers to create their own. This was particularly evident in Greenvale Marina, where the mast of the boat aligns perfectly with the bimini’s left rear support pole and an invisible line in the water, where the color splits between dark cerulean and light grey.
This line divides the painting into a two-thirds/one-third composition, subtly directing the viewer’s attention to the smaller, more emphasized area on the right. The composition is further complicated by the repetition of triangles across the middle section, which redirects the attention to the right. Eventually, the eye is drawn back to the left side due to its richer, warmer tones, and the process repeats, never allowing our eyes to rest.
As I continued to explore the exhibition, I couldn’t help but notice how the materiality of the paint stood out, much like in the works of Giorgio Morandi. A striking yellow in Red Dog’s Farm dominates the scene. This hue, seemingly more intense than the rest of the pastel palette, immediately caught my attention.
Upon closer inspection, it became clear that the vibrancy was due to a combination of cadmium yellow, subtly muted by Naples yellow, creating a warm, inviting contrast against the surrounding greens and blues. These subtle variations in color and texture created a playful yet sophisticated visual experience, introducing the viewer to the core of the painter’s process.
Playfulness is a recurring theme throughout the exhibition. In Rowing Ashore Monhegan, for instance, the absence of the sun in the sky—replaced by an orange sphere in the water—adds a playful, almost whimsical element to the work. The sphere might be a reflection of the sun, a ball, or some other object, blurring the line between reality and imagination in a subtle, witty manner.
One of the most intriguing aspects of Bality’s exhibition was the blurring between foreground and background in Monhegan Sunset Walk. The lack of edges makes both planes blend seamlessly into one another, creating a minimalist composition that, at first glance, seems simple. However, as I looked closer, the complexity of the grey tones and the texture of the brushstrokes revealed a depth of energy and movement that belied the painting’s initial calmness. This blending of edges, where brushstrokes overlap, creates a suspension of time—not capturing a single moment, as representational painting typically does, but rather a series of moments, almost like a GIF.
The effect is reminiscent of Mark Rothko’s color fields, where the viewer’s gaze is temporarily suspended in the nuances of color and texture, searching for something familiar yet finding solace in the abstraction. What is different here is that there is representation, so that moment of suspension will come and go depending on how close to the painting you are standing.
However, one recurring element in these paintings troubled me. The inclusion of human figures in some of the paintings seemed unresolved. Their presence felt disconnected from the otherwise cohesive visual language of the landscapes. I circled back to these figures, trying to discern their significance, but ultimately, they introduced a visual and conceptual problem that the paintings were not addressing.
It was at the artist talk that I understood the significance of the human presence in Bality’s work as he provided further insight into his process. He spoke extensively about painting as problem-solving—a theme resonant throughout his work. Bality described each brushstroke as an attempt to either resolve or complicate a visual problem, a process evident in his paintings’ layered, textured quality.
His admiration for artists like Cy Twombly, Philip Guston, Susan Rothenberg, and Robert Henri was also apparent in his approach, which combines a love for the materiality of paint with a deep engagement with the subject matter. Bality’s method of sketching in watercolor en plein air before translating these sketches into oil paintings in the studio further justified my comparison to Giorgio Morandi’s paintings’ materiality.
Morandi covered his objects with paint before painting them, essentially painting paint. Bality’s process is similar in that he is painting his watercolor painting, which emphasizes the materiality of the paint.
Reflecting on “Outskirts,” it becomes clear that Bality’s landscapes are deeply concerned with the act of perceiving. His calm yet complex compositions challenge the viewer to engage actively with the paintings, to navigate the visual puzzles they present, and to appreciate the nuances of color, texture, and form. The exhibition underscores the complexity of visual experience, making us acutely aware of the act of seeing—something we often take for granted. Through his work, Bality invites us to explore the boundaries between reality and fiction, foreground and background, and the visible and the imagined.
