From the center of the frame, Javon Foster stares straight through you. He remains static, but his broad shoulders hint at the chaos that ensues when his body begins to move.
This Javon Foster is two-dimensional, but still conveys every level of fear and trembling that SEC opponents must have felt when facing the former University of Missouri offensive lineman.
Foster’s image is the work of Matt Ballou, an art professor at MU. For the past five years, he has worked with the school’s athletic department to create portraits of their All-Americans. Soon, four new Ballou portraits will take their place of honor on the wall of Mizzou football’s South End Zone facility: Foster, former defensive back Kris Abrams-Draine, current wide receiver Luther Burden III and former running back Cody Schrader.
The tradition continues
This tradition, this artistic immortality, began long before Ballou. The faces of MU greats from Bob Steuber to Kellen Winslow, from Conrad Goode to Martin Rucker and Jeremy Maclin take their rightful place on the portrait wall.
Ballou, whose work ranges from Richard Diebenkorn-inspired landscapes to intense narrative imagery and spiritual geometry, was initially “a little hesitant to take on the project as sports portraiture wasn’t really my thing at the time,” he said in an email.
But the commission offered the opportunity to draw a circle around his artistic practice.
“As a teenager in rural upstate New York, I learned anatomy and portraiture by studying images of Olympic athletes, particularly gymnasts and track and field athletes,” he said. “The legacy of those studies stayed with me later when I went to college in my twenties, where I focused on the aesthetics and geometry of the body under tension.”
Whether it’s a smooth running back or an introspective seer as the world resembles the Book of Revelation, the character in Ballou’s work owes something to the athlete.
And like a four-star recruit, Ballou appreciated the opportunity to carry on an ongoing legacy. The late artist Ted Wells created many tiger portraits over the decades.
“I thought I could follow in his footsteps and at the same time give things a little Ballou flair. It was a challenge and that piqued my interest,” he said.
What Javon Foster and Luther Burden show us
To create these portraits, the artist receives images from the football department and then creates “digital versions of compositions that I think would make dynamic paintings,” he said. Through collaboration and feedback, the vision is refined and the final image emerges.
In this latest terrifying quartet, Ballou is particularly pleased with his portraits of Burden and Foster.
“The authority of their chest posture and the directness of their gaze at the viewer give them a lot of presence,” he said.
Foster stands out for “the quality of his facial expression and his bold hunched shoulders,” Ballou added.
Capturing the essence of a body that is so often in motion, heading toward collision and then breaking away again, presents special challenges.
“Discipline, technique, instinct and post-mortem analysis are all part of what leads to phenomenal physical feats,” Ballou said. “To capture that in a still image is difficult, perhaps even more difficult than achieving the likeness of a person.”
More: Patrick Mahomes’ Super Bowl-winning essence captured in a portrait by local artist Jenny McGee
There is a reason, he added, that sport takes on a cyclical, rhythmic quality.
“We want to see it again and again, and better than ever before,” he said of athletic performance. “We want to compare and measure ourselves (or our teams) against previous successes. There’s something about that rhythm that fascinates me.”
No matter the wins or losses, and the place of sport in relation to the rest of our lives – which are so often eagerly awaited personally and globally – “it’s worth simply reflecting on the beauty of the human form, which is operating at the limits of its natural abilities,” Ballou said.
This ongoing practice in portraiture also allows Ballou to steer his own work toward something purely fun and “pragmatic.” In this way, he continues to teach while being creative outside of the classroom.
“I think it’s good for my students to see me working not only in my niche areas of interest, but also in other areas,” he said. “And it’s funny/weird to think that 100 years from now, these portraits will probably be the only artwork of mine that people will see on a regular basis.”
For more information on Ballou’s work with MU Football, check out a recent post on his website. To learn more about the depth and breadth of his work, visit https://mattballou.com/.
Aarik Danielsen is the Tribune’s features and culture editor. Reach him at [email protected] or call 573-815-1731. He is on Twitter/X @aarikdanielsen.
This article originally appeared in the Columbia Daily Tribune: Mizzou Tiger football stars captured in professor’s paintings
