Jerome (Sarah Ball 2025) auctioned at the The Drawing Room Biennial 2026.
A major fundraising event in aid of the Drawing Room, a visual arts charity and gallery based in London. Proceeds from the auction support the charity's mission to champion drawing, keep exhibitions free, and fund community learning and artist studios.
Extract from essay by Chlöe Ashby
Demonstrating an acute sensitivity to the psyche of her subjects, Jerome by British artist Sarah Ball highlights the physical attributes and material adornments that reveal the subject’s idiosyncrasies. “The work is titled with the subject’s preferred name and that’s the extent of the personal story that is revealed.” Ball explains, “these little vignettes give you a little bit of information but then invite you to fill in the rest.”
By denying the viewer any hint of narrative about the subject’s identity, we are drawn instead to their gaze which “insinuates a fertility of expression, distinct from the signifiers which conventionally objectify the personality of a portrayed subject,” writes Flavia Frigeri (Curator, National Portrait Gallery). Ball describes “The eyes, for me, are the counterweight to all that instant consumption. […] They remind us that a face is never the whole story.”
Jerome (2025)
Caran d'Ache pencil on paper
29.8 x 21.2 cm