Antonio Ballester Moreno was born in 1977 in Madrid. His artistic practice began with video, and in the early 2000s he exhibited his first works in group shows and festivals focused on audiovisual production. His videos at the time explored elements of the landscape in its broader visuality, with uncut sequence shots that opened up paths to his landscapes in motion. In 2008, Ballester Moreno obtained a research grant to take part in a laboratory at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León - MUSAC, and in this workshop he made his first paintings, already pointing to a repertoire that would generate some of his main characteristics: primary colors, an economy of forms and the exploration of the landscape in its unique elements. During this period, his practices began to converge with motifs oriented towards the manual process, and subsequently his language extended to ceramics and collages.
Although his approach has references in abstraction, Ballester Moreno's work evokes compositional aspects, which are evident to the extent that the artist understands his work as relational: hardly any of his canvases or jute are painted in a singular way, unrelated to other works. Ballester Moreno understands them as dialogic, compositional and panoramic. His work process also investigates art's ability to transcend boundaries, both those of the artistic environment itself and those of the educational environment, in the direction of what he has described as a practice of “art in small letters”, in which all strata can be received and understood as common ground, reaffirming aspects of his work related to education.
Among solo exhibitions, his work has featured in shows such as Água (verde), at Gomide&Co (São Paulo, 2024); THE MOUNTAIN, THE SKY, THE WIND, THE SKY, at Tanya Leighton (Berlin, 2024); Nubes (verde) at Maisterravalbuena (Madrid, 2023); ANOTHER DAY, at Tanya Leighton (Los Angeles, 2022); 10h, at Galeria Pedro Cera (Lisbon, 2022); Sin intención, proposito o finalidad, at MAZ (Guadalajara, 2017); ¡Vivan los campos libres de España! at La Casa Encendida (Madrid, 2017); One day after another, at Christopher Grimes Gallery (Santa Monica, 2016), among others. Among group shows, his work has been featured in Sublime Spirit, at Marianne Boesky Gallery (New York, 2024); Epílogo, at MUSAC (León, 2024); Seeds of Resistance, at MSU Broad Museum (Michigan, 2021); Fabula Rasa, at Tanya Leighton Gallery (Berlin, 2019); the 33rd Bienal de São Paulo: Afinidades afetivas [Affective Affinities], in which he was artist-curator at the sentido/comum nucleus (São Paulo, 2018); among others.
His work is included in the collections of museums and institutions such as the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León (León, Spain); CIFO - Colección Ella Fontanals Cisneros (Miami, USA); Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary (Barcelona, Spain); CA2M - Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo (Móstoles, Spain); Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Madrid, Spain); Olbricht Collection (Berlin, Germany), among others.