David Ward, Touching Light

"I cannot look at Out of the Blue without noticing, feeling very insistently, the impulse to look skyward, heavenward. Looking, for me in front of this piece, feels like letting something soar heavenwards, like a release of something from my hands." – Professor Peter de Bolla, 2025

Touching Light brings together a group of recent pieces by David Ward, made in the last year, that meditate on the nature of light and gravity. Ward’s preoccupation with light is a thread that has run consistently through his work for the past four decades, dating back to early light drawings and the dance work Huge Veil produced at Riverside Studios in 1984. In this show, Ward touches on childhood memories of light’s transience, ranging from flickering car headlights to cinematic projections, to create a new body of work.

A dense network of literary and personal references under-pin each individual piece in Touching Light. At the core of the exhibition are the archival prints I felt my life with both my hands, which take their title from the first line of the Emily Dickinson poem, number 357. The photographs of the artist’s hands evoke birds, in the form of shadow play games, which in turn refer to the myth of Icarus. By layering cultural, autobiographical and literary references in this way, Ward brings together a number of lenses through which the viewer can be drawn into his work.

Whilst the ceramic objects in this exhibition, made by the same hands, are more tangible than the light and time-based projects produced by Ward in recent years, the participation of the viewer remains a key facet of each piece. Umberto Eco’s theory of poetics deems that the viewer completes the work, and Ward’s pieces, through reflection, words and touch, invite us to do just that. By offering us these entry points into his inner world, Ward grants us a uniquely personal insight into his thinking and work.

David Ward
I felt my life with both my hands I-V, 2024 - 25
Archival ink print on acid free, cotton rag paper
89.5 x 112 cm
35 ¼ x 44 ⅛ in.
Edition 1 of 3 plus 1 AP