Holly Ward: the Relay

May 4 to 21, 2006

Guelph artist Holly Ward's multi-disciplinary work examines the social and political implications of aesthetics, focusing specifically on notions of progress and power.  For the exhibition, the Relay, Ward employed video, photography and sculpture to re-position examples of Utopian literature and New Left texts.  Responding to Ernst Bloch's notion of Uberschuss, or overshot, which identifies a surplus of vision in works that address desire for better social systems, the Relay gathered this excess and passed it on, like a baton in a race which is too long for any one person to run, insisting on a continued trajectory of such discussions.  Relying on the discursive act of reading, and examining time as a device which transforms physical materials and contextual meanings, The Relay questioned how immaterial forms persist, and are perpetuated, throughout history.

From science fiction movie depictions of future worlds, through High Modernism's aspirations towards independence and freedom, to corporate designations of authority and control, ideologies become visually coded.  Ward's practice seeks to identify these codifications and re-present them, pointing to our own familiarity with, and acceptance of, these codes. 

Holly Ward's work has been shown in solo exhibitions across Canada.  Selected recent venues include the Or Gallery (Vancouver, BC), YYZ Artists' Outlet (Toronto, ON), Oeil Du Poisson (Quebec, PQ), and Struts Artist-Run Centre (Sackville, NB), amongst others.  In 2006, Ward's work will be featured in the exhibitions Until Then Then at Western Front (Vancouver, BC) and How Soon Is Now at Western University ARTLAB (London, ON).  Ward holds a Bachelor of Arts, English degree from the University of New Brunswick, a Bachelor of Fine Arts, Interdisciplinary degree from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Guelph. 

The Opening Reception for Holly Ward: the Relay was on Thursday, May 4 at 7:00 p.m. with the artist in attendance.

Images:    Holly Ward
                   Sunrise/Sunset: Three Early Modern Utopias, Susan Bruce, Ed. Oxford University Press, 1999
                   (from the collection of the University of Guelph Library) 2006 (video still)