The Send-Off, 2024

The sequence begins with ‘The Send-Off’, 2024, an imposing 1.5m-wide work that refers to the death of Ballard’s mother, Mary, in 1964, when her daughter was just seven. Triggered by the death of her father in 2009 – 45 years later – Ballard sought some resolution to the obvious trauma involved over the years by seeking to rediscover her mother, to find out what her childhood was all about. As part of that process, she travelled widely to investigate the history of how civilisations have dealt with death. In her words ‘after descending into many burial chambers on the Orkney Islands and visiting Japan’s temples and shrines, and the mythological site of the river Sanzu (which the deceased need to cross to get to the afterlife), I came home inspired by humankind’s inventive ability to create death and grieving rituals as well as forms of the afterlife.’ This drawing, then, concludes that process. We see a funerary barge, a ship of time, sending Mary to the afterlife, enabling her daughter’s ‘adult self to say goodbye’. On the ship we see a blanket, recalled from Ballard’s childhood, to keep her mother warm, and a cup to supply drink on the journey. A moon-like disc provides the portal to another life. The ship appears Egyptian, pointing to another of Ballard’s destinations.
Text by Paul Carey-Kent