Ballenden has been producing Art and teaching since qualifying in Fine Art at The Wits Technicon in 1993 Cum Laude. Her work is in three major collections The Anglo American Collection, The Sasol Collection and The Johannesburg University Collection. Ballenden has had five solo exhibitions and has been on many group shows.
Ballenden’s abstract works have evolved from beautiful sad drawings which many times were deliberately destroyed with fire or cut up with a knife, as she felt the work was not good enough: “This destructive process has become a conscious way of working where I lovingly deconstruct a failed drawing or ink painting and then reconstruct the cut pieces of paper and raw canvas into new abstract work”.