Picture this, a long-tailed giant rat is sitting on top of a man and it looks like it’s consuming something from the inside of his mouth.
Spotted, next to this couch where the man and the rodent are laying, there is a baby playing with ducklings and there is a Gogo, who seems nonchalant about the “couch situation”.
This is one of the first portraits that catches my attention as soon I walk into the Standard Bank Gallery, in Marshalltown, Jozi, for the official opening of “Roger Ballen in Johannesburg” exhibition this week.
Around the gallery, there are these strange, captivating, surreal or sinister, depending on how you view it, mind-blowing visuals encapsulating Ballen’s photographic relationship with Joburg, dating back over four decades ago.
Hot on the heels of his Belgium and Paris tour, Ballen is showcasing his works for the first time at the Standard Bank Gallery until January 31.
Born in New York in 1950, Ballen arrived in South Africa in 1974, after hitch-hiking from Cairo to Cape Town.
Making a return to South Africa in 1982, Ballen found a home in Joburg and he has never looked back.
His work as a geologist took him out into the countryside and led him to take up his camera and explore the hidden world of small South African towns.
At first, he explored the empty streets in the glare of the midday sun but, once he had made the step of knocking on people’s doors, he discovered a world inside these houses which were to have a profound effect on his work.
One of the most influential photographic artists of the 21st century, Ballen’s work has previously been described as “disturbingly beautiful”.
His strange and extreme works confront the viewer and challenge them to come with him on a journey into “their own minds as he explores the deeper recesses” of his own.
After the walkabout, Ballen sat down with IOL Entertainment to elaborate on the inspiration behind his latest exhibition.
Reflecting to nearly six decades earlier, Ballen revealed how he discovered his passion behind the lens.
“The exhibition is called ‘Roger Ballen in Johannesburg’. It's an exhibition that shows, my viewpoint and my photographic relationship to the city,” he said.
“I’ve been taking pictures since 1960, so I've been doing this for 54 years.
“It's what I do. And I guess the biggest inspiration for my work is my own work. And I always say, if you’re not inspired by your own work, then you’re in trouble.
“So I would say the biggest inspiration is the work I produced that inspires me to do more work.”
A self-taught master of photography, painter and artist, he said he fell in love with the camera at an early age, all thanks to his mother who was passionate about photography.
“My mother started one of the first photo galleries in the US, in New York. As a young man, I got to meet the most famous photographers in the world.
“By the time I was 15 or 16, I could take excellent photographs. So many of the most famous photographers in the world, my mother knew … we had their books and pictures all over the house. And this is how I got interested in photography.”
Many of Ballen’s art pieces depict images of people’s interaction with animals, animals interacting with other animals, sad people, people living in poverty and wealthy people.
“A lot of the people I’m photographing are outsiders, people living on the edge. People that are not really at the centre of society. People who don’t have regular jobs …They don’t wear masks, what you see is what you get.
“People when they look at my work, always refer to the people. I mean, in most of the pictures here, you have animals.
“We don’t know what the animals feel. We don’t know what is the relationship between the animals and the people and the people and the animals.
“There are a lot of questions about the work over different periods and how the work changed and what the interpretation of the work might be at any particular time.
“It’s not necessarily any more real or not real than anything else. I don’t know what goes in your mind and you dunno what goes in my mind except for the look in some of the pictures. You might take pictures that are more unreal than what I take.
“These are mental landscapes. It's very important. Mind landscapes are not necessarily documentary. That’s a transformation of something in front of me, in a more imaginable way.The earlier work is a little bit more documentary.”
Catch this not-to-be-missed “Roger Ballen in Johannesburg” exhibition at the Standard Bank Gallery.
Read the latest IOL Entertainment digi mag here.