His oeuvre, which spans five decades, began with the documentary photography field but evolved into the creation of distinctive fictionalized realms that also integrate the mediums of film, installation, theatre, sculpture, painting and drawing.

[2] They aim to break through the repressed thoughts and feelings by engaging him in themes of chaos and order, madness or unruly states of being, the human relationship to the animal world, life and death, universal archetypes of the psyche and experiences of otherness.

His mother was a member of the famous photo agency Magnum from 1963 to 1967 prior to opening the Photography House Gallery with Inge Bondi in New York City in 1968.

Here, he was exposed to R. D. Laing's anti-psychiatry movement, Jung's concept of the "collective unconscious", the Theatre of the Absurd (Pinter, Beckett and Ionesco) and existential philosophers, such as Sartre and Heidegger, all of which came to be formative in the development of his artistic style.

[6] In the autumn of 1973, yearning to find Conrad's "heart of darkness" and Eastern nirvana, he left on a five-year journey, that would take him by land from Cairo to Cape Town, and then Istanbul to New Guinea (1973-1978).

He also began a series of 'field photographs' of streets, earthen paths or walls (inspired by the colour field painting movement) and developed an interest in observing the life of young boys.

This profession took him into the South African countryside in which he travelled to remote small villages called "dorps" and rural areas referred to as the "platteland", in which he photographed the marginalized whites who were once privileged during Apartheid, but who were now isolated and economically deprived.

Ballen's early street photography and the psychological portraiture of Boyhood, Dorps and Platteland was influenced by the work of Cartier Bresson, Walker Evans, Diane Arbus and Elliot Erwitt.

He writes: "Black-and-white is a very minimalist art form and unlike color photographs does not pretend to mimic the world in a manner similar to the way the human eye might perceive.

These mysterious closed rooms have been referred to by Ballen as "visual embodiments" of the 'place' of the subconscious mind, and as set in which people and animals present themselves and interact with objects and drawings; moments preserved by the stillness of the photograph.

One feature of the subconscious replicated in Ballen's psychological realms is the presence of the uncanny: the juxtaposition of incongruous, or unexpected, inexplicable elements to produce "new meanings that have yet to be formulated" and mimic the irrationality, free association and symbolic functioning of the unconscious mind.

Didi Bozzini wrote that the relation between Ballen and his subjects disrupted the "laziness of our everyday gaze", thereby referring to the way in which his works subvert visual schemas, syntax or narratives.

"[15] Young links this to the chaos evoked by the way in which Ballen's photographs created a contiguity between natural and unnatural worlds, human, animal and inanimate objects, such that they are on the "same plane of being".

[5] In his first publication, Boyhood (1979) Ballen presented a series of photographs of boys (chosen from 15000 images), shot during his four-year quest across the continents of Europe, Asia, Central and North America.

The book contains weathered portraits of the corners, artifacts, trading stores, churches, main streets, signs, ornaments, people and interior dilapidated columns.

Here, Ballen presented tragic portraits of these people, who were facing political and economic anguish at the demise of an Apartheid system specifically designed to elevate them and guarantee government employment.

In Shadow Chamber (2005), Ballen's work made leaps into a metaphoric, surreal dimension with multiple conscious and subconscious meanings: "ambiguous images of people, animals and objects posed in mysterious, cell-like rooms.

As a consequence, this project ushered Ballen's surrealism, and the integration of documentary photography with art forms such as painting, theatre and sculpture, venturing into the realm of abstraction.

Ballen has subsequently built installations all over the world, for example in the Istanbul Museum of Art (2016), Galleria Massimo Minini 2016, Brescia, Italy; 2017, Les Rencontres Arles (2017), Zeitz Mocaa, Cape Town (2017), City Passage, No Exit Revisited (2018) Wiesbaden; Museo de Fotografia, 2018, Fortaleza, Brazil.

Ballen's collaboration with Comme des Garçons featured at Paris Fashion Week saw his artwork on the brand's Homme Plus A/W 2015 range, where his images were etched onto the back of white coats for their Fall 2015 collection.

In No Joke (2013), Ballen and Rossouw collaborated with Asger Carlson to create photo-sculpted figures, swapped self-portraits, substituted and reassigned body parts, oddly occupied architecture, cut and collaged hand-drawn masks and graffiti, as well as spiders, foxes, angels, demons and dolls in an imaginary dream-like set on which an elusive narrative unfolds.

The rodent protagonist of these black-and-white photos engages in devious behaviours that are both humorous and sinister; relinquishes morality to live a life “unconstrained by societal norms.” The rat dances and drinks with mannequin friends, participates in lewd or sexually perverse acts engages in acts of torture, beheading or dismemberment (kills catfish in a bath, ties and locks up mannequins in a narrow cupboard, feeds another rat to snake and holds a head on a butcher block).

There is little hope for a better world until humanity comes to terms with the unpleasant fact that repression and fear are the masters of their destiny.” [26]Some have even deemed Roger the Rat as an eponym of the artist; more specifically, of his unconscious.

Directed by Justin Elgie with cinematography by Paul Gilpin, the film adds an extra dimension to the character of Roger by placing him in a medium with the capacity to reach a wider audience.

Since construction of the Inside Out Centre for the Arts was halted due to the pandemic, Ballen set up an ad hoc painting studio in this used unfinished, empty building, and worked there for two months in isolation.

This process of internal, psychological discovery– in which repressed or concealed material is brought to the forefront of consciousness when looking at the artwork– is captured in the name “Inside Out Centre ''.This aesthetic ideology is also translated into all aspects of this landmark’s design.

In a similar vein to Ballen’s works, this architectural movement aimed to confront the viewer to the ‘raw’ by exposing sculptural elements or bare building materials.

The exterior of the building, stippled in Tyrolean plasterwork, harks back to the Arts and Crafts Movement and pays homage to many of the heritage houses established in the area.

Horizontal windows line is the walkway that bridges the entrance with the office area and frames significant scenes of the historic suburb of Parktown (such as the famous white spires of the Johannesburg South Africa Temple).

On the other side, enlarged windows on the front of the building look onto a grand jacaranda tree; a pond that brims with bamboo, black water lilies that appear as iron sculptures and vegetation of Westcliff ridge.