Connect
To Top

Check out Sean Ward’s Artwork

Avatar photo

Today we’d like to introduce you to Sean Ward.

Sean, we’d love to hear your story and how you got to where you are today both personally and as an artist.
I’ve been trained in the arts, in just about every medium, since I was 5 years old. My parents have always given me the opportunity to let my creativity excel since they first saw me making geometric drawings using those stencil rulers filled with shapes. Surprisingly, the fascination of geometry has never gone away! Throughout college, which I graduated with a Bachelor’s degree of fine arts in Graphic Design from Wichita State University, I constantly focused on design and color theory.

Under the instruction of numerous amazing faculty members from the university, it peaked my interest into turning design aesthetics, and geometry, into paintings rather than sticking to print and digital methods typically used by graphic designers. Now, years later, having participated in Art Basel week in Miami and Frieze week in New York City, both with Superfine! Art Fair, and numerous exhibitions throughout the country from coast to coast, I have gained everything necessary to maintain a life dedicated to the creation of my paintings and happily I can say, I have over 350 collectors all over the world! My next big show is Superfine! Los Angeles in February 14-17, 2019.

We’d love to hear more about your art. What do you do you do and why and what do you hope others will take away from your work?
My art is a product of research and dedication to constantly trial and error techniques in design and color. Technically speaking, it is part of the “Op Art” and “Geometric Abstraction” movements, but hidden under the superficial titles, it’s about my love of design. Each of my paintings burst with lines, shapes, patterns and a full spectrum of color to make a flat, static, design pop and move by simply looking at them. The paintings are typically made with acrylic paints, but lately I have also been diving into utilizing oil paints, alcohol-based paints and ArtResin to create multi-layered works of art, as well!

The creation of all of my works stems from a need of meditative practices in my life. Like most people, life can get stressful, but my constant desire to paint and create designs calms everything down and shows me just how wonderful the creation of art can be for one’s well-being.

To give you a peek into the creation of my works, you could compare me to your typical graphic designer, hidden behind a computer or sketch book trying to figure out how a plethora of shapes and color can work together to influence the minds of the viewer. My works are all created on a computer, as I am a perfectionist when it comes to my designs, but also because I find working digitally allows the discovery of new designs to be so much more efficient! Normally, it’s not the first, second or even third design that becomes a painting, but these designs are all stored, layered, tweaked, twisted, whatever is necessary to create a design that I find outstanding. Once that design is made, comes the entertaining part… I utilize stenciling mediums and an X-Acto knife to move the design from the computer to the wood panels that the painting will be created on. This involves printing on architecture/blueprint printers, using vinyl, cutting stencils from plastic/styrene, whatever I have in front of me, and then dousing the works in layer after layer of paint using just a palette knife to accent the designs with a curated collection of colors that add to the visual effects or become the effect within the combinations of color, itself. After any necessary touchups are completed, I typically release the paintings immediately for public viewing in the hopes the artworks can exhilarate someone’s day with the peaking interest of figuring out the paint magician’s tricks, or to creating a centerpiece in someone’s home or business to use as an icebreaker for social interactions.

Have things improved for artists? What should cities do to empower artists?
This is an incredibly challenging question to answer, as the art market has been constantly fluctuating for years now. One of the constants, is that, for artists you know there are two periods of the year when sales peak. Those periods are the spring and fall. During the summer and winter, an artist’s sales tend to slow down, so it’s incredibly important for artists to make sure they don’t fall victim to the slow months. Now, in regards to recent years, depending on the state of the economy, sales have excelled or slowed. I found that 2014-2015 were the best years I have ever had, but then then when the economy crashed, sales were farther out of reach and required a great deal of effort to get your works seen on as many channels as humanly possible. Thankfully, there has always been an influx of venues to display your work, but venues to display the work doesn’t always correlate to sales that help an artist maintain their lifestyle of being a full-time artist, so I’ve seen multiple artists forced into additional jobs to meet their bills, myself including at times.

The number one suggestion I would suggest to any city to help artists, is that people have to understand that the works artists create is their paycheck, their way to afford the basic necessities in life. Buying a work of art means that artist can make even more art for you to enjoy, and they can afford necessary assets, like health insurance, auto insurance, new supplies, etc. If collecting art is not your cup of tea, then tell your friends about the artists, as word of mouth is one of the most efficient ways to help spread the word about an artist, or at least I believe it is.

The other thing that I have to mention that greatly helps artists, is make sure your local governments always understand that art is everywhere and it enhances the lives of the public. So, like the recent budget increase in the Arts in Massachusetts, continue to let your representatives know how art in the community has helped better your life. So many artists rely on any government assistance, via grants or other methods of funding, to see their large, community-appreciated, projects come to life that everyone can enjoy! If that funding disappears, so does so many opportunities for public art projects.

Do you have any events or exhibitions coming up? Where would one go to see more of your work? How can people support you and your artwork?
The best place to see my work in real-time is to follow my accounts on Instagram. My main account is @SeanChristopherWard, then each of my different movements also have their own Instagram page, for those that only want to view one style or another. I am also on numerous art marketplaces, where you can purchase one of my works for yourself. The marketplaces include Artfinder, Artsy, Facebook Shop and Saatchi Art.

If you would like to see my works in person, I have a gallery in Wichita, Kansas, entitled HUE Gallery of Contemporary Art, and my studio in Wichita, is at Studio|School, which is a collective of artist studios. Then, I am constantly traveling the country with organizations like Superfine! Art Fair, which has displayed my works in Miami and New York. Coming up in February 14-17, 2019, Superfine! will be displayed my work in downtown Los Angeles at Magic Box LA.

Contact Info:

Image Credit:
Andy Warhol piece is a collaboration between Sean Christopher Ward and Angie Evans.
All other works are by Sean Christopher Ward.

Getting in touch: BostonVoyager is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.

Related Items

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

More in