Blake Ward is a Canadian-born sculptor best known for his contemporary approach to the classical figure. Contrary to the trend toward abstraction that was taught during his formal education in Canada, Ward’s early work centred on the figure. Evolving through the 1990s and early 2000s into contemporary partial figures created as commentary on the human condition.
Fragments Collection (2005 - 2012), Inspired by the continuing devastation left by remnants of war witnessed by Ward during his time teaching in Vietnam. Within this series Ward subverts the traditions of figurative sculpture to create an interpretation illustrating both the fragile character of beauty and man’s enduring ability to survive. Through a process of de-construction, the "shocking yet hauntingly beautiful sculptures portray a paradoxical vision of beauty while underlying a menacing historical reality. This body of work became art that was meant to foster social engagement as a form of Activist Art.
The ReThink Collection (2012 - present) explores urgent concerns; it is art filled with self-reflective interrogation, seeking to examine the context of each artwork within a specific social, cultural and political circumstance. These works speak of the fragile character of truth, comprising diverse perspectives and intimating contemplative messages revolving around the consolations of hope, justice and human rights. Designed to be adversarial in nature, ReThink fuses political commentary with perspectives that challenge the ideologies and prejudice found within various societies.
Ward and Hackel began working together in 2013 as Hackel shared her knowledge and experience as a conceptual artist and an old masters painting restorer, in developing and painting the graffiti that covers many of the ReThink Collection sculptures.
The Spirit Collection (2013 - present). In this body of work Ward/Hackel began to explore alternative ways to transform the figure, ways not traditionally seen in bronze statuary. Typically, the interior of a bronze sculpture is never visible and rarely, if ever, had moving parts. They decided to open the sculpture and show the inside, as well as allowing for movement of some of the parts of the sculpture by building an independent inner structure. With these sculptures they wanted to reflect on the inner consciousness of people through the investigation of an inner landscape. Further, Ward/Hackel address the concept of humanity within the bronze work, in a reference to Hackel’s love of Renaissance Humanism; a homage to antiquity, innovation, and their exaltation of the human form. This co-authored work became less concerned with the portrayal of the figure than with the idea behind the figure, and together they developed a new set of criteria physically illustrating our interior essence and complexity. "The ‘Spirit’ collection is all about inner beauty, self-awareness and mindfulness. It relates directly to how we perceive our world. The deeper we look, the more we see."
In Ward’s most recent series of works, Andromeda Collection (2017 - present) the figure has evolved to another level of creative requirements through the use of computer aided design (CAD) software and 3D printing. The first sculpture; Devorah combines the use of digital technology with traditional sculpting, in order to enhance the design of the "open partial figure" originally created earlier in the Spirit Collection.
The process began by taking a high-resolution 3D scan of a bronze sculpture created specifically for this purpose. The resulting digital data file is then re-sculpted in the 3D sculpting software program and a central supporting structure added in. Finally, the digital files are printed employing a SLS 3D printer in a wax polymer and a lost-wax bronze cast is made in the traditional manner. The finished sculpture takes advantage of the unique capability of sculpting at a microscopic level and the freedom of being able to create a structure without having to support it during construction in cyberspace. The resulting artwork would be impossible to create by hand.
Creating the figure using this technology changed everything about modelling the sculpture and allowed a previously inconceivable amount of freedom for the imagination. The choice to combine traditional hand-made/analogue sculptural methods with digital techniques, allowed Ward to maintain certain elements unique to the traditional materials used that were absent in the digital world of mathematics and geometry. In contrast, the development of an interior structure to serve as a central core for these sculpture became the ideal element in which to employ these new digital resources.
