Christian Ward
dal 12/3/2010 al 23/4/2010
Segnalato da
12/3/2010
Christian Ward
Galerie Michel Rein, Paris
Balanced Rock. The particularity of Christian's paintings originates from his intricate motifs and technique. The mist and moss, often blending into the landscape, are often dabbed on with a hard brush. Most remarkably, the colour graduation of rocks, stretches of water and cascades are prepared on his palette and completed in one unique brush stroke.
« It is often the case that the value of an education is derived from other students. »
Richard Hamilton
In 1998, at the Winchester School of Art where we met, Christian Ward was working on
a series of desert landscapes made after photographs as well as numerous drawings he
sketched while hitchhiking through the Arches National Park in Utah.
One year later, while installing our degree show, I recall criticising his use of a
yellow so acidic and bright that it was almost impossible to look at the canvas. He
simply replied "how do you think the reflection of the sun on the sand looks like?".
Christian's yellow was meant to render his experience of the landscape rather than
look naturalistic. That day, I think I began to understand painting a little better.
It was something very simple (almost evident, if I had showed more interest to
Cezanne instead of Schwitters) but that had not yet occurred to me.
Between 1999 and 2002, Christian studied at the prestigious Royal Academy of Arts in
London. There, he began his series of paintings, which got him a name in the
international London art scene. In France however, except for a group show at the
Consortium in Dijon in 2006 and for a few shows I organised myself, his work has
barely been displayed; in this, he is not exception, as Chris Offili, Tomma Abts or
Peter Peri are not shown any more. It seems that there are paintings that one judge
best to only present with other paintings; what a funny idea.
He depicts vast imaginary and truly psychedelic landscapes, on large horizontal
canvases, which he renders from a successive layered construction of grounds openly
referring to Sino-Japanese paintings. From Japanese descent and with an interest
for Impressionism Art, he got rapidly familiarized with this part of art history,
which the ruling occident-centric continues to consider too often as a mere
curiosity.
After a trip to the island of Yakushima, whose luxurious vegetation was used by
Hayao Miyasaki as a model for his forest in Princess Mononoke, Christian embarked on
his cave painting series. He invents and explores fictitious grottos, whose cavities
release cascades in his vast composition.
The particularity of Christian's paintings originates from his intricate motifs and
technique. The mist and moss, often blending into the landscape, are often dabbed on
with a hard brush. Most remarkably, the colour graduation of rocks, stretches of
water and cascades are prepared on his palette and completed in one unique brush
stroke. Whereas the concentric tracks left behind by the hairs in the oil paint
undoubtedly recalls the raking of Zen gardens, the technique resembles equally some
of Bernard Frize's paintings and the Chinese precept of the unique brushstroke
precluding any corrections.
Inside the caves, the coloured graduations are not randomly distributed; they
correspond to the various sources of light (often visible on the picture) whose
arrangement is rigorously established at the sketching stage. With Christian Ward,
the infinite possibilities of imagination are constrained to a "precise painting »,
a pictorial syntax which the artist developed throughout the years.
Since 2005, new desert landscapes appeared. The grottos work as passages or tunnels
between the strangely coloured rocks and the large japanizing scenery.
Constructions, houses, huts, totems or sculptures, and rock conglomerations
punctuate these yellow deserts. These structures raise the question of attribution,
are they the work of nature or men? Who equally appear more and more regularly in
the desert scenes and in the humid oriental panorama.
In parallel to Christian's recent development of his cave paintings and desert
paintings, the artist chose to present for the first time in a solo show a selection
of drawings. His works on paper can be divided into two categories; preparatory
ones, premeditating the paintings and ones following which could pass as the
creation of the mysterious characters inhabiting the scenes.
Opening Saturday March 13, 2010, 4-9pm
Galerie Michel Rein
42 rue de Turenne - Paris
Open Tuesday - Saturday 11 am - 7 pm
free admission