PROFESSIONAL HUMAN
(OCT 3 - 27, 2024) at Upstream Gallery, Hastings On Hudson, NY
This show asks the question: does relevance rely on our ability to advertise and commodify our thoughts, daily lives, and the work we produce?
Ward chose portraiture as the vehicle for this message. Portraits force you to be interested in subjects simply as subjects. He isolates the individual from imposed storylines and crafted perception: the paintings tune into the human frequency. These are real people telling a small story of our time, and the responsibility Ward assumes in this show– to capture the cast of characters’ essence with care and empathy– makes each portrait a personal and delicate affair.
For Professional Human, Ward asked: “what would be more boundary-pushing and radical than the return to a classic genre?” He answered with this small rebellion against a culture of oversaturation, pushing himself to make a deeper investment in each painting. Amidst the pressure to produce, we are required to tell stories to sell our work and talents. After enough time, we forget where that line separates our fiction from reality.
"I’m trying to read each person, and although I feel it would be a disservice to the subject, as well as to the work of art, if I impose “my style” onto them, I’m hoping the viewer sees them through me." - Ward on Professional Human
Leaning further into the multifaceted nature of being a human being, Ward also made audio a part of the show. He recorded songs and short stories on a 4-track cassette recorder using the same principle that he’d embraced with the portrait paintings, namely, with editing and track limitations on the device, that the recordings are all about performance. He created both new songs as well as renditions of stories that he has written. A limited edition run of 100 12” vinyl EPs will be available as part of the show.
PAST EVENTS
2023
Solo show of 26 new paintings at Upstream Gallery, Hastings On Hudson, NY
June 1st- June 25th
‘THE DREADED SUNSET’
I'm looking forward to exhibiting this body of paintings that began to form in the early months of 2022. The show is not necessarily an end point, more of a glimpse into an idea that is ongoing - the story is not finished, but unfolding. I like that, and I hope you will too.
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! For the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
From 'Dover Beach' by Matthew Arnold
I’m happy to be included by curator Nancy Nikkal for the 8 person group show, Drawing The Line, at Pelham Art Center in Pelham, NY. Nancy selected four of my wire paintings (see 2015/16 page on this website) that I made in England between 2014 and 2018. The show is open from February 11th to April 2nd, 2023. Pics below.
‘THE THREAD THROUGH THINGS’ presented by the Hastings Village Arts Commission
November 2nd - January 28th, 2022
TB Ward is showing works currently in an exhibition titled The Thread Through Things (December 2-January 28, 2023). The show traces the artist’s path from idea to sketch to completed painting and shows all the stops along the way. The exhibition is presented by the Hastings Village Arts Commission, at Village Hall, 7 Maple Street, Hastings on Hudson, NY.
TB Ward says: “What I love about being an artist is the whole process. I make observational sketches – studies of a landscape, a person, or an object – and over time these moments can feed directly, or sometimes indirectly, into paintings whether they are realistic or abstract. To me, it’s an obvious and intuitive path from sketch to final piece, but this is not always apparent to the onlooker when only viewing the finished painting. I hope this show will communicate the thread through all of my art and highlight the relevance, as well as the beauty, of the steps along the way.”
3 Days Only!
Pop-Up Art Show in NYC alongside Sean Taggart
October 14th -16th, 2022
319 Grand Street, NY, NY
I’m really happy to have been featured in the brand new HUDCO ART PROGRAM. To read my interview with HudCo and see the paintings for sale, click here
It’s 2021 and I feel the need to make beautiful paintings. It seems like the right thing to do. My paintings allow me freedom -- I attack them and I love them. I appreciate the inexplicable associations when they happen. Moonlit mountainscapes, fire, futuristic wheatfields, sites of ancient battles, calming seas -- it’s all there in front of us if we want it.
Solo Show - Ipalavari - at the Upstream Gallery, Hastings On Hudson Feb 27 - March 22 2020
8 Main Street, Hastings On Hudson, NY 10706
These new works emerged on the back of a series of plein air paintings I made in the UK in 2017 & 18. I fell in love with oil paint whilst making those paintings. However, I gravitate towards abstraction and this new series leans back that way. I've worked single-mindedly and intensively for the last 18 months, not second guessing the idea of mixing landscape and the abstract. I was sure. I committed to this series. It's landscape; it's human impact; it's color; it's line; it's composition, it's time, it's instinct; it's influence from art history; it's a decision to make art. It's everything. But I'm left questioning. I look forward to moving on; this must lead somewhere, the inexorable quest for work with meaning.
In my studio in Shropshire, UK in 2018. This video was made by my good friend, musician Joel Pike (Tiny Leaves) for his single “The Fullness Of Things”.
