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DAVID WARD

Light Drawings: California 1978

Of their peculiar light *

Saturday 21 November - 19 December

Thursday / Friday 11 - 5, Saturday 11 - 4

and by appointment

Ken artspace is delighted to announce an important exhibition of unique works by the artist David Ward.

Known for his work in a range of light and time based media including installations, photography, performance, film, sound and painting, the gallery will host a presentation of a collection of unique photogram collages Ward made whilst living in California in 1978. Working in a sub-let studio on Grove Street on the edge of Oakland and Berkeley, California, Ward writes:

I made an improvised darkroom (only completely light-proof at night which is when I worked) and used a range of materials to produce ‘negatives’. These included commercial glass samples found in a San Francisco flea-market, galvanised wires and drawings made on acetate and other transparent or translucent sheets. Composed as contact prints on Kodak photographic papers and exposed to light before being developed, the resulting abstract photographic traces relate to visual languages of non-figurative painting including the grid, the gesture of line and layering or veiling.

As precedents at that time, Man Ray’s photographic experiments and Fox-Talbot’s foundational ‘photogenic drawings’ of 1839 were of interest to Ward, but as a counter to picture making and the silhouette, his focus was on the trace of reflected and diffused light over and within surfaces gleaned locally. Working in the Bay Area, light was subject to more atmospheric luminosities and varied climatic effects (like sea fogs) rather than the relative continuity of the light of the desert regions of Southern California.

* Emily Dickinson

Light Drawing: California 1978

About the artist

David Ward was born in Wolverhampton, England in 1951. He attended Wolverhampton School of Art (1968 – 69) and studied painting at Winchester School of Art (1969 – 1973). He lives in Wiltshire, UK.

Working with a range of media including light, photography, performance, sound and painting he is also known for his collaborations with other artists, choreographers, architects and composers. He has been artist-in-residence at the Mappin Gallery, Sheffield; King’s College, Cambridge; Harvard University; Durham Cathedral and was a Research Fellow at the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds. His work is represented in a number of public collections including Tate, The National Portrait Gallery, Arts Council England, the Fogg Museum at Harvard Art Museums and the Pier Arts Centre, Orkney.

He also writes, curates exhibitions and has made numerous permanent and temporary works in the public realm.

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Ken artspace is a small new art space in the heart of Kennington.

Run by artists and founders Rob Kesseler and Agalis Manessi is

dedicated to a mix of occasional exhibitions, window installations

and pop-up events.

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