Henry Ward
www.henryward.com
@henzward
Statement:
My paintings are abstract and rooted in an interest in formal exploration. I am interested in painting in order to discover what I am painting. I make drawings, both from observation and intuitively, and these inform the paintings though they do not directly reference them. I have two specific sites of practice: my studio, where I work on several paintings at a time, often over many months or even years; and my shed where I work daily on small paintings on paper, creating an ongoing series of “Shed Paintings”. The “Shed Paintings” are made completely instinctively. The shed is small, cramped, cold, there is nowhere to sit. It is resolutely not a place to think and contemplate and so has become a site of pure production. The studio, conversely, is a place where I spend as much time not painting as painting. Thinking, looking, reading, moving paintings around. The paintings build up over time and I am increasingly interested in the layers, both literal and metaphorical: the meeting of concerns form one point with more recent interests. The way a colour or form I employed months ago might have a conversation with something very different painted today. Forms, shapes, colours and gestures discovered in the “Shed Paintings” appear in the more resolved works made in the studio. The two paintings submitted here (“Mill” and “Comic”) were both made over months (in the case of “Comic” years) and involved multiple iterations before reaching their current state.
www.henryward.com
@henzward
Statement:
My paintings are abstract and rooted in an interest in formal exploration. I am interested in painting in order to discover what I am painting. I make drawings, both from observation and intuitively, and these inform the paintings though they do not directly reference them. I have two specific sites of practice: my studio, where I work on several paintings at a time, often over many months or even years; and my shed where I work daily on small paintings on paper, creating an ongoing series of “Shed Paintings”. The “Shed Paintings” are made completely instinctively. The shed is small, cramped, cold, there is nowhere to sit. It is resolutely not a place to think and contemplate and so has become a site of pure production. The studio, conversely, is a place where I spend as much time not painting as painting. Thinking, looking, reading, moving paintings around. The paintings build up over time and I am increasingly interested in the layers, both literal and metaphorical: the meeting of concerns form one point with more recent interests. The way a colour or form I employed months ago might have a conversation with something very different painted today. Forms, shapes, colours and gestures discovered in the “Shed Paintings” appear in the more resolved works made in the studio. The two paintings submitted here (“Mill” and “Comic”) were both made over months (in the case of “Comic” years) and involved multiple iterations before reaching their current state.
Mill
90 x 70cm Oil on canvas 2022 |
Comic
50 x 40cm Oil on wood 2020-22 |