Ida Bagus Made Bala

Bala was born in Batuan, in 1920 (Dermawan 2006: 50)

Educated in a Dutch school for five years, Bala could speak and write Malay. He was the son of a high Brahmana priest couple (G. Heertz 1994: 101).  He had an introverted disposition, and kep to himself. In 1942, he fell ill and died a month later. (Hohn 1997: 79-80). Bala was influenced by the Western artists living in Bali at the time. He had visited Bonnet and Spies to watch them paint, and was a member of the Pita Maha. There are fifty-one pictures by him in the Bateson-Mead Commission, many of which were small copies of sorcerers' talismanic figures. (H. Geertz 1994: 101) Indeed according to Hohn, Bala was intensely concerned with the underworld and its demonic forces, and these concerns were reflected in his works. (Hohn 1997: 80)