Rebecca Ward's practice merges painting, sculpture, and craft by physically deconstructing and reassembling canvases to create geometrically grounded works. By exposing the multidimensional nature of painting and its constituent parts, Ward creates a spatial play of harmonious forms and color interactions that explore the relationship between the mathematical and the natural world. Ward delves into the complex interplay between transparency and the spectral presence of the abstract. Through a manipulation of reassembled materials and viscous gradients, the artist explores spectrums—both literal and metaphorical—where shadow and form transcend their physical boundaries. The work invites viewers to contemplate the delicate nature of perception, blurring the lines between the tangible and the ethereal. Ghostly silhouettes, fragmented and elusive, emerge from the translucency of unwoven canvas, embodying the shifting forms that shape understanding of reality.
Her works incorporate both hard-edged and curving forms that emerge from rectangular canvas planes, with varying scales, tonalities, and configurations. The shapes originate as digital drawings within a mathematical space—a vector that can be infinitely large or small—before being enclosed within the confines of stretcher bars. This initial step of creating sketches involves layering dissected forms and diverse shades that persist in the final handcrafted, sculptural objects. The titles add layers of associations and a signature of Ward’s practice over the past decade has included taking fabric apart by removing the weft to create a new and transparent image that both exposes and obscures the underlying stretcher bars.
Rebecca Ward (b. 1984, Waco, TX) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. She earned a BA at the University of Texas, Austin, TX (2006) and an MFA at the School of the Visual Arts, New York, NY (2012). Institutional exhibitions include Rebecca Ward: distance to venus, SITE Santa Fe, Santa Fe, NM (2022); Fresh Faces from the Rachofsky Collection, Site 131, Dallas, TX (2021); Over & Over, Columbia College, Chicago, IL (2018); Rebecca Ward, The FLAG Art Foundation, New York, NY (2017); Eastwing Biennial: Artificial Realities, The Courtauld Institute of Art, London, UK (2016); Making & Unmaking, Camden Art Centre, London, UK (2016); The Tim Sayer Bequest, The Hepworth Wakefield, West Yorkshire, United Kingdom (2016); Linear Abstraction, Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah, GA (2015); Rebecca Ward: indulgences, Exchiesetta, Polignano a Mare, Italy (2015). Residencies include Shandaken: Storm King Art Center, New Windsor, NY (2016) and Atelier Alighiero Boetti, Todi, Italy (2013).