HOLLY WARD

2014

Oct 30

5th & Victoria
LUMIN-HAUS, RIVERSIDE PARK

Holly Ward is an interdisciplinary artist working with sculpture, multi-media installation, architecture and drawing as a means to examine representations of social progress and the utopian imaginary.  She received her BFA (interdisciplinary) from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in 1999 and her MFA (studio) from the University of Guelph in 2006.

Ward has exhibited in solo shows across Canada at the Morris and Helen Belkin Gallery, the Or Gallery in Vancouver, and YYZ Gallery, Toronto amongst others. She has participated in group exhibitions in Canada, England, Mexico, the US, Norway and South Korea. She is currently represented by Republic Gallery, Vancouver where she had a solo exhibition in 2009. For her 2009-2010 Langara College Artist in Residence project in Vancouver, Ward constructed a 22’ diameter geodesic dome to act as host to a series of exhibitions, readings, workshops and experimental performances.

In Radical Rupture the visual of the creation of a universe, one star at a time, is combined with an audio recording of a lecture given by Herbert Marcuse in 1968 on the nature of aggression and repression. At the mid-point of the lecture, the stars begin to disappear one by one, ending with a black screen. This installation consists of a projection screen tilted between the wall and the ceiling, five beanbag chairs and a large shag rug. Viewers should lean back in the chairs to orient themselves towards the screen.

Sunrise / Sunset: Three Early Modern Utopias, Revised
In this video, a paperback copy of a book titled Three Early Modern Utopias is raised into the frame. The lower right hand corner of the book is central in the frame, when the person holding the book starts flipping rapidly through the pages. Random words from the text are briefly legible, while a bright yellow ink-splotch on the bottom of the page becomes animated by the action of flipping the pages. The ink-splotch comes to resemble a sun rising and setting on the horizon, as the person holding the book repeats his action from front to back, then back to front numerous times.

Loheland
Inspired by the Loheland Colony, a radically utopian, all female school founded in Weimar Germany, this video focuses on the relationship between modern dance and Great Danes, two disparate enterprises for which the colony became well known. While the tenants of modern dance developed at Loheland, such as non-rhythmic, asexual movements, were curtailed due to criticality towards the gaze in performance, their commercial success at breeding Great Danes (which enterprise funded the school) lives on today: Loheland Danes are still the top prize winners for the breed. Loheland Dance Rehearsal Research Residency is a video document of an experiment in movement combining human and animal bodies, wherein an exploration of physical repertoires and an intersection between radically different bodies creates a speculative connection between the creative and commercial enterprises of this historical example of feminist utopian pedagogy.
This work includes a give-away artist poster, available at the KAG admissions desk.

hollyward.org