HENRY WARD - BIOGRAPHY
For Henry, each painting is an opportunity to explore paint, its quality and potential, an opportunity to ‘indulge in the visceral seductiveness of paint’. The inspiration - whether an object, a colour, or an old master painting - is just the start of the journey. Henry endeavours to lose himself in the process and create work that sits on the edge, familiar yet strange, rooted in reality but hinting at something just beyond reach.
‘I want to make forms that feel familiar but are unnameable, forms that feel as though we might recognise them.’
Henry’s work is alive with contrasts and conversations as he explores the boundaries between abstraction and reality, the discordant and the harmonious. He works on different scales from the modest to the exaggerated. He works in different spaces - his Shed and his Studio and his titles often have ambiguous dual meanings.
Ward paints in two distinct sites, his Shed in Queens Road Peckham and his Studio in Woolwich and there is an ongoing dialogue between the way he works in these spaces. Lockdown precipitated a regular daily practice in the refuge of his Shed. This rigorous, regular practice continues to inform the larger canvases produced in his studio - which offers the time and space to contemplate and build on the rapid and instinctive Shed Paintings.
Training | Middlesex University, PhD, 2013; Goldsmiths College, PGCE Secondary (Art), 1999; Winchester School of Art, BA Hons (Fine Art), 1993; Central St Martin’s College of Art & Design, Foundation Diploma, 1990.
Solo Exhibitions | Engine Room m2 Gallery, London 2024; Medusa & Other Stories Kittoe Contemporary, London Art Fair 2024; From Woolwich, Oasis, Frinton On Sea, 2023; Baffle Aleph Contemporary, London, 2021; Abracadabra AMP Gallery, London, 2018; Henry Ward Stark Gallery, London, 2004; Henry Ward – Paintings and Drawings North Bank Gallery, London, 1995.
Selected Group Exhibitions | Cubitt Invites Cubitt Studios & Gallery, London 2024; G.R.I.T Kunstpunkt Berlin and Drawing Projects UK, Dundee 2024; Wells Contemporary 2024 Wells 2024; Concrete Abstract Terrace Gallery London, 2024; Knot – Rachael Causer & Henry Ward Stone Space, London 2024; Carnevale – Friendly Little Monsters Vivienne Roberts Projects, London 2023; Don’t Look Back Vivienne Roberts Projects, London 2023; Look Both Ways – Dan Preece & Henry Ward Kittoe Contemporary, Curious Kudu, London 2023; Colour, Texture, Substance, No Name Warbling Collective, Kingsgate Space, London 2023; A Little Closer Aleph Contemporary, London, 2023; Shapeshifters Irving Contemporary, Oxford, 2023; Small is Beautiful XL Flowers Gallery, London, 2022; Swamp Legends Terrace Gallery, London, 2022; The Aesthetics of Enchantment in Abstract Art Aleph Contemporary, London, 2022; Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize touring UK, 2022 – 2023; On Surface – Perspectives on Painting Messums London, 2022; Beep Painting Biannual 2022 Elysium Gallery, Swansea 2022; A Generous Space 2 The New Art Gallery, Walsall 2022; Roam Rebecca Gilpin & Henry Ward, Fitzrovia Gallery, London 2022; The Football Art Prize Touchstones, Rochdale then touring 2022.
Residencies | Stephen Swindells Studios, Burgundy, France 2024; The Albers Foundation, Connecticut USA 2023; Dirty Practice, Wolverhampton Art School 2019
Collections | Soho House, London; Department of Education, London.
Winner or the Artlogic 'Best Stand' Award at the London Art Fair 2024. Shortlisted for the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize in 2018, 2019 and 2022, and longlisted for the Contemporary British Painting Prize 2021. Included in the inaugural The Football Art Prize in 2022. His work has been included in numerous exhibitions. The first substantial publication about his work Shed Paintings was published in February 2021 by Hato Press and features 101 works on paper and essay by Ben Street.
Ward is the Director for Freelands Foundation (www.freelandsfoundation.co.uk), and launched the Freelands Painting Prize in 2020. Previously he was Head of Education at Southbank Centre and worked in a variety of roles at Welling School, a Specialist Visual Arts College, where he led on the school’s specialism. In 2002 he established the alTURNERtive Prize, an annual award celebrating outstanding student practice. In 2011 he founded the biannual arts and education periodical, (www.wellingvisualarts.org). He is a visiting lecturer at UK art schools including Bath Spa University, University of Brighton, Manchester School of Art, Plymouth College of Art and Wolverhampton School of Art, and a mentor on the Turps Art School Correspondence and off-site courses.
He has written and lectured widely on the arts and education, with a particular focus on teaching as an artistic practice. He was an advisor for Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin from 2018-21 and curated a two day event, “Assembly”, investigating approaches to public engagement in 2018 and a follow up, “Assembly II” in 2021. He is a trustee of Bolton Contemporary and has been an advisor for Iniva and the Crafts Council.