Ward George

Artist Statement

Ward George is a contemporary representational artist interested primarily in the female nude. Having made off with his mother’s paint box at the age of nine, Mr. George is largely auto-didactic (self-taught). He has, however, graciously received guidance and encouragement from time to time from several accomplished painters and photographers, to whom he is eternally grateful and proud to call his friends.

Although deeply influenced by modern art and its philosophies, he soon embarked on a deeper study of the whole of Western Art. As a result, he has built a foundation drawing from the depth of western tradition as well as more contemporary sources. Ward has chosen the nude as an expressive vehicle for three reasons:

• first, it is the foundation of Western Art;

• second, it is an art form in and of itself;

• third, and most importantly, because of his natural sympathies for the human figure and the enduring source of challenges and opportunities it presents.

Ward began as a traditional media artist. Oils on canvas, watercolors, works on paper, etc. This all began to change in the late 1990s. On a trip to a local Seattle camera store with his friend, the now-deceased Bill Cummings of Northwest School renown, he encountered the first Fuji digital imaging printer. He immediately saw the potential. Ten years of experience with computer-based commercial media and a pioneering spirit made it inevitable that he couldn’t resist exploiting this potential. Inevitably, art follows technology. Since that moment Ward has been developing proprietary digital painting processes that are the bulk of the work he has exhibited since 2001.

Believing that an artist must bring intellect, emotion and technique to his work, he has taken what he considers of greatest aesthetic value from artists as varied as the Zen masters, Turner, Rembrandt and Picasso, de Kooning and Ingres, Rodin and Welliver, Matisse, Wyeth, Rubens and Pearlstein.

https://wgeorge.com

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