In 2019, Ball made a splash at TEFAF with his solo presentation with Fergus McCaffrey. The artist recalls the “proud” and “emotional” experience when a barricade had to be constructed to protect his pink onyx response to the Hermaphrodite Endormi (Sleeping Hermaphrodite) from the surging crowd. “I scanned the original in the Louvre. It is probably the most famous composite work in the history of art,” says Ball. “It was worked on by multiple artists over two millennia, and I wanted to write a 21st-century final chapter for it.”

For Ball, the “pinch-myself” moments are when his works are exhibited next to the historical source sculptures. In 2018 at an exhibition at the Castello Sforzesco in Milan, his Pietà Rondanini was exhibited near Michelangelo’s 16th-century original, and plans are under way for the Louvre to show his Sleeping Hermaphrodite beside theirs in an exhibition at the Nouveau Musée National de Monaco. In addition to scanning other historic masterworks, including a 15th-century Japanese Buddha, Ball’s current projects range from developing his unique stone-blending operation to creating a multi-figure, site-specific work for a collector who is building a private underground museum. In 2022, the Korean company LG commissioned Ball to produce NFTs, which he created at Hollywood production levels. New versions of Ball’s NFTs, which are derived from his years-in-the-making golden portrait of Pope Saint John Paul II, were released in February 2023 with an original soundtrack produced in collaboration with a renowned Seoul-based sound production company.

While the blurring of fine art and technology is ubiquitous today, Ball is quick to remind modern audiences that this concept is hardly new: “Throughout history, artists used every trick in the book to help realize their work. For example, Michelangelo’s water-bath enlargement method.” To gauge the distance he should cut into a stone block, the legendary artist would make a scaled model of a sculpture and submerge it in water, gradually releasing liquid to see which parts would emerge first; these would serve as the figure’s outermost points, likely the nose and eyebrows.

For Ball and his digitally-driven practice, artmaking is as much about reverence as it is evolution: “When we are comparing art made now to art in the past, I always say we should be able to do better. We have better tools, better methods, and better light. We should be able to exceed our forebears because those artists were hamstrung compared to us technologically.”