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Fleur, the legend returns :

It may come as a surprise that Fleur Ball, chanteuse and cuntry Superstar, is only known in Brisbane from her rare spontaneous appearances in pubs and at the occasional party. Even after a long career in the arts and music, with all of the associated successes and failures, Fleur’s ouvre remains largely unfamiliar on her own territory. Fleur, the legend returns is an attempt to redress this oversight in an exhibition that celebrates Fleur’s undistinguished career with photographs, videos, music and of course, performance. It could be said that this exhibition is a visual and auditory curriculum vitae looking at the life and times of Fleur Ball.

F leur was originally brought to life as a delusional Country and Western singer who side stepped the initial struggle for fame and fortune by declaring herself a Superstar from the outset. Always confused, Fleur was known for missing her turn offs and appearing uninvited at events where oddly enough, her presence was always greatly appreciated. Unlike the other great country stars for whom ‘crossover’ means from country to pop, a bewildered Fleur actually crossed art form and thus her career became a work of art. As a result she has not only sung at events such as the Maleny Folk Festival and The Gympie Country and Western Muster but has also been artist in residence at venues such as Brisbane Powerhouse and the Cooloola Gallery.

Straddling fact and fiction Fleur is one of the more highly developed characters from The Ball Park, created by Di Ball as part of a research project aimed at exploring how notions of identity are mediated through the use of various technologies. Existing in IRL (In Real Life) as well as URL (Un-Real Life) ‘residents’ of the Ball Park attempt to narrow the gap between reality and fantasy, public and private. Paradoxically, the generation of multiple personalities functions to reconcile a diversity of functioning identities within The Ball Park and the implications of such a project are further extended in each character’s role as an exploration of self. In other words Di Ball’s constructed personae represent and give autobiographical form to specific elements of her own psyche.

As Linda Carroli puts it in Krystal Clear (1998) her essay on Krystal Ball “ … the work of Di Ball … crosses the tropes of performance, writing, comedy and visual art to converge in cyberspace, a stage on which the manifestations of her multiplied and decentred self are presented.”

David Broker (catalogue essay 2005)