The timed auction ends Thursday July 30th at 8:00pm. Whoever holds the highest bid at the auction closing time wins.
B. Balliro
CRAVING CHAOS, 2021
Acrylic paint on Canvas
Height 102 cm x Width 102 cm
Artwork is stretched and ready to hang & comes with a certificate of authenticity
Starting Bid: $1,400
CRAVING CHAOS was painted at a time in my life where everything felt very predictable & stagnant. It is a manifestation via paint of excitement & unpredictability; one of my first true abstract explorations in this style - throwing possessed lines + playing with a conflicting colour palette.
Artist Bio: B. Ballirò is a Melbourne-based artist whose work draws inspiration from lived experience, travel, ritual, and the landscapes she inhabits. Exploring themes of identity, femininity, memory, and human connection, she creates expressive works that sit between abstraction and representation.
Working across oil, acrylic, pastel, and mixed media, she has spent more than a decade developing a distinctive visual language characterised by intuitive mark-making, layered surfaces, and emotionally resonant colour.
Guided by intuition rather than convention, Ballirò's work is driven by a belief that creative authority does not require pedigree or permission. Her paintings emerge through a process of experimentation, emotional observation, and embodied response, resulting in works that are simultaneously raw, playful, and deeply personal.
Her practice has been shaped through immersive residencies and mentorship both locally and internationally, including periods in Italy and southern England. In 2024, she presented her debut solo exhibition, Lei Mangia, which sold out in full. In 2026, she followed with Practica at Brunswick Street Gallery, a body of work examining the relationship between emotional expression, ritual, and contemporary expectations of restraint.
Underlying much of Ballirò's work is an exploration of identity, femininity, and inheritance. Once told that daughters do not matter because they do not carry the family name, she now signs her work prominently with her surname, reclaiming both her Italian heritage and a proud, defiant femininity.
Whether abstract or figurative, her paintings seek to capture the contradictions of human experience: chaos and calm, vulnerability and strength, humour and heartbreak. Through layered surfaces, intuitive gestures, and emotionally charged colour palettes, Ballirò invites viewers to connect not only with the work itself, but with the feelings that sit beneath it.