When an artist’s career is flourishing, and they have a critically acclaimed series to their name, we rarely consider that they might at some point pivot styles, mediums, or even genres for that matter. Yet, change in an artist’s practice is inevitable. No matter how one tries to resist it, for the artist, it comes to a point when things no longer align with the soul; the expression may feel abit off-kilter.
What lands on the canvas no longer resembles what they feel, leading to a confrontation with the default setting of their comfort zone of creativity. For contemporary artist Robyn Ward, the transition from street art-inflected figurative pieces to his now-celebrated abstract aesthetic marks his reckoning with the default settings of comfort, slipping out of the skin of conformity and genre inheritance.
© Robyn Ward
Ward is not the first, nor will he be the last. Picasso danced from Cubism to Neoclassicism, then wandered into Surrealism’s dreams. Pollock shed his figurative skin for the wild abandon of Abstract Expressionism. O’Keeffe moved from soft, early abstractions to bold, blooming petals. Each of these artists felt the shadow of comfort pressing close, a whisper that something was off, urging them onward.
However, this shift for Ward is driven by something other than a desire to cater to galleries or gain critical approval. Instead, I feel it’s more of a reclamation of his practice—a rebirth as such, starting anew.
Ward’s progressive shift has not been linear, but more of a series of creative ruptures, each time something unexplored is born. Initially entering the art world under the cloak of numerous pseudonyms like many street artists do, as well as working as part of art collectives over the years, Ward decided to reveal his identity in 2017, which garnered the watchful eye of international media. Since his reveal, Ward has been practising under his birth name.
Ward is known for multi-faceted, surrealist works often layered with obscured, almost hallucinatory figures and objects amidst eerie backdrops. As Ward says, “Each layer depicts a different fragment of time,” illustrating snapshots of the past mixed with elements of nostalgia and innocence.
Image courtesy of the artist
© Robyn Ward
Ward’s canvases were the battlegrounds for his exploration of identity, societal upheaval, and environmental anxieties. Even then, a restlessness seemed to hum beneath the surface, a sense that his work was pushing against itself. There was a sense of rebellion as his figures never seemed quite settled, bleeding at their edges as if anticipating the inevitable metamorphosis that was to come.
We witness this in his Fucked at Birth series, inspired by his childhood in Belfast. The series unearths the traumas of his youth, where sporadic violence lingered in the streets and shook daily life, connecting his personal experience with larger issues like destruction, government struggles, societal collapse, environmental damage, and inequality.
In Wandering Mind, a piece within this series, Ward reflects on the institutions that tried to box him in. There is a haunting irony that lives in this work—a spectral, headless figure wearing a considerably sized bowtie strikes a fragile balance between innocence and defiance. The unsettling presence lures the viewer into its emotional paradox.
Fucked at Birth Series
Image courtesy of the artist
© Robyn Ward
As a teenager, Ward made an audacious choice that I would say would shape the direction of his artistic path: spray-painting the school rooftop in an act of rebellion. This act, now in retrospect, feels symbolic, like an omen of the freedom he would later seek throughout his work and numerous studios across the globe. As he states, “So quite often when I’m painting, I will go through months when I don’t touch anything,” Ward says. “And then other times I have to paint because I have an urge to paint, but then I get blocked. That’s why I like to have two studios; I can just get up and go to another and get fresh inspiration from a culture, a smell, a sound, people.”
Image courtesy of the artist
© Robyn Ward
Over the years, Ward has evolved, revealing the complex struggle between the desire for control and the yearning for freedom that defines existence. He has lived most of a nomadic lifestyle, driven by a need for escapism and its more opaque counterpart, avoidance.
Ward’s transformation would reach its zenith with his first solo exhibition in New York, Waking in the Dark, curated by Shai Baitel of MAM Shanghai. The exhibition featured twenty-two abstract works and six sculptures, where silence sharpens the senses and the unseen becomes the most valid truth. Ward poses existential questions, inviting viewers to confront: Why do we roam? and What remains in the wake of relentless movement?
Image courtesy of the artist
© Robyn Ward
The work in Waking in the Dark was monumental, charged with the frenetic energy of Ward’s strokes that slice across the canvas with a force that feels almost violent, bringing a texture to the surface where paint seems to breathe and shift with the light. Gone are the figurative elements of his earlier years, replaced by bold swathes of colour that defy representation, focusing instead on sensation more than form.
Accompanying Ward’s paintings were his sculptural works that deepen the sense of immersion—not just static objects but extensions of the canvases that demand to be navigated and experienced. In these works, themes of migration and displacement take on a palpable weight.
Image courtesy of the artist
© Robyn Ward
Through his journey, Ward’s work has become a meditation on dislocation, memory, and the passage of time. Ward’s abstraction is far from an esoteric exercise. In his evolution, we witness an artist severing ties with the past—not to escape it, but to honour its influence. Now the transformation is complete. What remains are works that are elemental, raw, and personal—a reflection of a world in flux and an artist unafraid to confront its turbulence.
©2024 Robyn Ward
Len is a curator and a contributing writer at Art Plugged, a platform for contemporary art; he also engages in web development, design, and marketing.
