I’m trying to read them, and although I feel it would be a disservice to the subject, as well as to the work of art if I impose “my style” onto them, I’m hoping the viewer sees them through me.

(TB Ward on Professional Human)

English-born, New York-based artist TB Ward will open his solo show Professional Human on October 3rd at Upstream Gallery in Hastings on Hudson, NY, with an opening reception on October 4th. It is a really interesting and original show consisting of seven oil paintings with an aural accompaniment consisting of four songs and five spoken word/short stories.

I read that this show was born as a reaction to the idea of a "personal brand" and the fictional world people create online that we accept as reality. It asks the question: does relevance rely on our ability to advertise and commodify our thoughts, daily lives, and the work we produce? Ward chose portraiture as the vehicle for this message because they force us to be interested in subjects simply as subjects. He isolates the individual from imposed storylines and crafted perception: these paintings tune into the human frequency. These are real people telling a small story of our time, and the responsibility Ward assumes in this show makes each portrait a personal and delicate affair. I thank TB Ward to find time to answer to some questions on this upcoming show.

You started to work into music. Can you tell us about that time what drew you to music and the life of a musician?

When I left art college my enthusiasm for art, understandably, was at an all-time low, and I had no idea what was next. At the same time, it just so happened that I reconnected with two friends from secondary school who were in the same boat. They both played guitar, and I said “I don’t mind saying things into a microphone”. We started to make some recordings just for fun, but I think we all immediately thought there was some potential in it. That went on for a few months, and then we got a chance to rent a house in Liverpool for the summer so off we went!! Once there, we found ourselves a drummer, a rehearsal room, and then started playing gigs. None of us questioned it – we just went for it and a couple of years later we moved to London where things really started happening.

What drew you to New York and when did you move there?

The first time I came to NY was to play a gig with the aforementioned band (we were called Elevate). It wasn’t really ever an ambition of mine to go to NY – the gig was booked by our management – but obviously, once there, it had its appeal. I met my wife, Ruth, during that first visit so from then on I started visiting her in NY every couple of months until she moved to London in 1997. A year or so after that the band started to break down a little bit and I was ready for a change, so when Ruth was offered a job back in NYC we moved there in 1999.

What initially inspired you to get into visual art prior to school? After the break you took what inspired you to get back into visual art?

One of my early memories was of poring over a selection of art books that my parents owned - Van Gogh, Renoir, Monet - I’m not really sure what I was thinking, but there was a magic that I was aware of. Also, my dad was an architect so I was always surrounded by his drawings and he often made sketches of the landscape when we went on family holidays. I remember sitting with him on a wall on the outskirts of a little seaside village called Solva in Wales, drawing a view of the town. Obviously I saw what he was doing and he’d help with things like perspective and weight of marks.

In answer to the second part of your question, I really started getting back into visual art around 2000 in the first year after my move to NY. I was in a strange new environment, knew very few people, and had long days to fill, so I think I returned to that something that felt familiar and fulfilling. Having said that, I’d never totally fallen off the art wagon, as I’d always made the artwork for the records that my band had released, and the lyrics that I wrote were always in sketchbooks alongside drawings and notes that I made.

What is the very first piece you created?

The first piece after I’d recommitted to the visual arts in 2000? The first paintings I made around then were small strange people-less building-scapes. If I had to describe them, I’d say they inhabited the same world as Giorgio de Chirico paintings from around the First World War. They were definitely experimental and looking back, a lonely little series that perhaps reflects my early months in NY.

Returning back to England was it a new chapter of your artistic practice? What happened from an artistic point of view?

Yes, it was most definitely a shift for me. For clarity, we’d moved back to the rural town in which I’d grown up. Initially I continued to create abstract pieces that were an extension of what I’d been making in NY, but It dawned on me after a couple of years that no one was particularly interested in what I was doing and, really, I could be using this time to do something new and different. I’d always wanted to make plein-air landscape paintings and here was the opportunity to do just that! It goes back to my early childhood obsession with the paintings of Van Gogh and Monet and the post-impressionists. I wanted to get better at using color, test my observational skills, and to use oil paint. It was transformative and has affected all of my work since.

What is "Professional Human"? How does your process in this series differ from your other work?

I think the concept of making a profession out of simply existing as a human being is ridiculous and funny. Professional Human, the show, is a reaction to the sometimes vapid idea of a "personal brand" and the fictional world people create online about themselves. Does relevance rely on our ability to advertise and commodify our thoughts, daily lives, and the work we produce? I wanted to delve into a project where there is no hiding place, no imposed storylines, and I felt that portraiture was an interesting vehicle for this message. My small rebellion against a culture of oversaturation was to slow down, push myself to make a deeper investment in each painting. I feel portraits force you to be interested in subjects simply as subjects. There is an inherent responsibility to capture a person’s essence with care and empathy – making each portrait a personal affair. In terms of the actual paintings themselves, I’ve been using well known paintings from the past as templates for the poses - I’ve used works by Cezanne, Frans Hals, and Theodore Gericault, among others - which gives each painting a platform to build from and each sitter has a kind of visual in their head when we start the process. Obviously, as the piece develops, things change, but I love this nod to painters of the past.

Also, perhaps leaning further into the multifaceted nature of being a human being, I wanted audio to be part of the show, so I decided to record on my old 4-track cassette recorder using the same ‘no hiding place’ principle. I created both new songs as well as renditions of stories that I had previously written. Obviously there are limitations to how many tracks you can record on a 4-track device and I used absolutely no effects, they are all about performance. I’m excited to have pressed a small run of vinyl records to be a part of the show.