Vincent Ward | Exhale
3 July, 2012 - 2 September, 2012
Main Galleries, Master Bedroom & AV Gallery
Vincent Ward, Falling I (detail) (2012), mixed media on canvas
“The surprise strength is Ward’s paintings of female nudes. With their dramatic, ambiguous baroque gestures, and the rich rippling surfaces that coat the models’ skin as a film they are violent yet celebratory, as if part of some strenuous ritual. The emotional turbulence of these works tugs and turns you around, like a dark contemporary version of Renoir.” - Mark Amery, Dominion Post.
Exhale draws together the two strands of Vincent Ward’s career, as a feature filmmaker and his background in fine arts. Ward’s ongoing concern with metamorphosis, light, darkness and immersive experience has led him to create a series of physically imposing works that delve into otherworldly landscapes and transcendent states, seeking elusive ‘transformational moments’ that connect with the human psyche. Amongst the many explorations Ward draws upon his aesthetics for Motion Painting that led to an Academy Award. Referencing this aesthetic, he investigates the cusp between photography, paint and digital imaging to present a range of transformational moments.
“I am working to find an alchemical marriage somewhere between the worlds of motion, film and painting. ….Motion painting – frames of tracked paint on film – is the bridge between film, painting and photography. This uses a plethora of analysis: light, colour, tone and motion vectors in key frames. Scanned paint strokes are then attached to these tracked pixels to give the effect of paintings in motion. …We are at a unique juncture where it is truly possible to fuse paint with other media." -Vincent Ward 2011.
“…a powerful and haunting emotional and visual register within filmic worlds. His recent explorations with still images delve deeply into his abiding concerns with transcendence and acute moments of loss and discovery.” - Rhana Devenport, Director, Govett-Brewster 2011.
“Just like McCahon and Binney, Ward has never shied away from the truth: he digs and digs until he gets somewhere other film-makers and artists don’t often visit: a psychic space where violence, memory, myth, sex and religion mingle in a landscape scarred by its history. Breath is suffused with that same energy. It presents a man marked by his past: a major creative figure whose visual language is rooted in memory, trauma and a darkly physical relationship with the world.” - Anthony Byrt, New Zealand Listener.
At the core of the Exhale exhibition is an exploration into human vulnerability and the brevity of life. The works depict figures enacting moments of transformation as they fall, fly and float or attempt to surface and breathe. Exhale is one of two simultaneous exhibitions showing Ward’s work this July. Exhale features Ward's photographic, print and paint works. The second simultaneous exhibition, Inhale, will be held at the Gus Fisher Gallery and will feature his cinematic installations.
