Robyn Ward: Walking in the Dark

Curated by Shai Baitel in New York

By Maxime Foucquet

June 20, 2023

From May 6 until June 29, 2023, Robyn Ward takes over Gansevoort Street 82 in New York with an extraordinary and immersive exhibition titled Walking in the Dark, curated by Shai Baitel—also known as the co-founder of Mana Contemporary and the artistic director of the Modern Art Museum (MAM) in Shanghai, China. Twenty-two paintings and two sculptures populate a darkened room where the viewer roams with a light, exploring themes of migration, trauma, and the artist’s nomadic lifestyle driven by a need for both escapism and, more unsettling, avoidance.

Even though Robyn Ward is predominantly known for his figurative works—think of our interview in 2021, Robyn Ward: Fucked at Birth—the artist explores these themes by exploring new horizons once more, both in painting and in life, resulting in abstract compositions on large canvases and mixed media sculptures. Why do people roam? What is the aftermath of perpetual movement? Various psychological and political discourses can be discovered in this experiential exhibition. In this aspect, the darkened exhibition space and the labyrinthine installment function as an interactive metaphor.

“Like the abstracted nature of Ward’s artworks, a nomadic sensibility often abstracts the deeper reasons for such roaming. His work begets questions about what exactly Ward is veiling through his travels. Like the act of walking in the dark, viewing Ward’s work requires one’s eyes to adjust to seeing what would otherwise not be detected. Using wet, loose brush strokes with distinctive markings on the oversized canvases, he tells his story through a nostalgic veil of innocence and naivety, revealing snapshots of the past while simultaneously obscuring or hiding others, with each layer depicting different fragments of time that are indeed screen-shots of the artist’s life.” (Press release)

Robyn Ward was born in 1982 in Dublin, Ireland, and got into graffiti during his teenage years—an act of escapism, the first of many. As he was more interested in painting than in school, it was only a matter of time before the artist fully dedicates his life to art. Art would take him to London, Los Angeles, Amsterdam, Mexico City, and New York, often working under pseudonyms and various collectives until 2017. His work—as is the case with Walking in the Dark—reflects on personal experiences in relation to more global issues, discussing chaos, governance, violence, and more; “While engaging with themes of destruction and conflict, Ward’s work addresses his own life, defined by a perpetual sense of movement and a constant feeling of geographical restlessness.“

For more information about the exhibition and the artist, please consult the artist’s website here.