Sasha Ballon (b.1996) is a Canadian/British visual artist and tree surgeon currently working in Glasgow.

Sasha graduated from the Glasgow School of Art in 2022 in Painting and Printmaking. Prior they studied film and theater in Vancouver, BC, unceded lands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and Sel̓íl̓witulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. Sasha has been selected for the RSA New Contemporaries 2024 Exhibition, and was shortlisted for the Sustainability Award.

I am a visual artist and tree surgeon based in Glasgow. My practice is the meeting point of craft and trade. I use collage to incorporate moving image, performance, textiles, installation and sculpture. I place craft as a site of resistance: inherently queer for its potential to upend categorical ways of making. I bring the physical act of craft into a digital context through manipulation of archival video. The warp and weft on the loom mirrors how I approach collaging with moving image.
I use weaving and textiles within my work as a metaphor for physical strength in softness.I combine welding, chainsaw wood carvings, and tapestry weavings to compare soft and industrial processes. My chainsaw carvings take on figurative qualities while never being exact replicas.
It’s within my performances where the figurative objects come into being and life.
I use a world-making approach to build characters which I place into environments to explore. Within my performances I engage with narratives of fear/desire/pleasure/power. My performances are movement collages which use the body as an extension of sculpture. The collages follow a looping structure which uses failure and dysfunctional movement patterns to test the limits of what the body is capable of.