Description
Henry Ward’s paintings explore shape, form, and colour through playful, intuitive compositions that sit between abstraction and representation. In this film, Henry reflects on a practice shaped by colour, acrylic paint, and experimentation. He shares his fascination with the logic and illogic of cartoons, unexpected colour relationships, and the importance of working instinctively. From spontaneous ‘shed paintings’ to found-object sculpture, he considers how play, uncertainty, and curiosity continue to shape the way he paints.
0:00 “I don't set out with an idea of what it is I'm going to paint.”
0:38 Introduction
0:59 “My parents would set some objects up, and we'd all do a drawing together.”
1:34 “When my brother and I both said we thought we'd like to go to art school, I think my mum, to some extent, saw that as a way of living vicariously.”
2:25 “She said, ‘If it's not in the filing cabinet, it's not a job’.”
3:46 “I've always enjoyed the kind of physics of cartoons, the oddness of cartoons.”
4:35 “I'm really interested in how painting speaks about painting – how it can be this cyclical, self-referential kind of conversation.”
5:18 “Cézanne was making paintings 150 years ago, and we still look at them, and it's got nothing to do with apples.”
6:03 “Why on earth am I starting another painting?”
6:40 “I'm interested in the affinity I feel towards certain colours.”
6:58 “I use takeaway trays until they're impossible to use because they become so heavy with paint.”
8:52 “I went from being the one person who was really interested in art to suddenly being surrounded by this huge number of really interesting people who were really interested in art.”
10:23 “I don't think you're a printmaker, I think you're a painter.”
12:07 “I rocked up at Winchester as this resolutely romantic, early 20th-century-inspired figurative painter"
13:36 “So in my third year, my work changed completely, and I started making paintings that actually looked very abstract.”
14:44 “I recognise that my paintings ostensibly appear abstract.”
16:18 “The title of a work carries huge responsibility.”
17:51 “What I love about acrylics is I can work...I can rework, I can erase.”
19:38 “Matt acrylic medium is partially responsible for giving the paint that more kind of liquidy oil consistency.”
20:07 “I was going to curate this exhibition, and that was going to be the moment when everybody was going to recognise our incredible genius in the work we were doing. And so we had this exhibition…and nothing happened.”
21:33 “I didn't really know why I even wanted to make paintings anymore.”
22:45 “I was painting in secret, because the world had been told that I wasn't a painter.”
23:18 “I will go through an intense period of drawing, and sometimes that's about consciously wanting to just shift away from painting.”
24:46 “I think sometimes it's about writing things down to try and understand what it is I'm doing.”
25:51 “I recognise that the paintings are kind of funny…that they don't take themselves too seriously.”
27:53 “These kids were bouncing with excitement.”
31:44 “I really like working at night, and I think there's a liberation that happens when you know that you're working and other people have gone to sleep.”
33:16 “I will go to the studio without necessarily knowing what it is I'm going to paint.”
35:40 “When I go into the shed to paint, I don't reflect, think, procrastinate, plan; I just pick up a brush, mix up colour, and put something down on paper.”
36:36 “I'm really excited by making sculptures and not being a sculptor. I sort of wish I could make paintings and not be a painter.”
38:23 “This sense of being alien, of being taken outside of the routines and the expectations … and being placed somewhere else, that has really profound effects.”
41:39 “The starting point of a painting is just to confidently put something there, whether that is a shape or a gesture, or a particular colour.”
42:46 “It will come as no surprise to anybody who's looked at even a couple of pieces of my work, that Philip Guston is a bit of an important artist for me.”
43:56 “Thinking about whether something is going wrong or whether something is going right is a bit problematic.”
45:37 “Scale is probably the thing that I'm most conscious of planning.”
47:07 “There's a certain kind of gesture that is inevitable because of my right hand.”
47:55 “I think I've always painted fast, I've always painted a lot, I've always been prolific.”
49:07 “I've got back into bed with the painting, and it's become another painting.”
50:08 “If you find something interesting, it's probably interesting, so do it.”
50:48 Credits
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