Sean Ward @ Rare Gallery...

Recently I made the trek from Providence down to Manhattan to check out the opening at Rare Gallery, featuring paintings by Sean Ward. There were roughly 60 people that Saturday evening, not enough people to get in the way of viewing the art, but enough to have a few enjoyable conversations over the course of the evening. It was nice that Rare held their opening until Saturday, avoiding the recent Friday night over-crowding trend, which is getting all too common in Chelsea.

Ward’s show, New 65 Inch Paintings and Then Some, was situated in the main gallery. Ceramic heads (also by Ward), slightly larger than life-size and decorated in various glaze and enamel were interspersed aside Sean’s large-scale paintings, filling the space while avoiding feeling crowded.

Confronting people as they walked through the main door was Expression Painting #1, a large photorealistic painting of a grisly mouth, with crooked yellowed teeth and bloodied gums. The image is revolting, causing me to question who (or what) this mouth belongs to; perhaps some monstrous beast or a murderous cannibal of sorts? Metal dental apparatus holds the mouth open for the viewer’s inspection, allowing us to see the metallic fillings as they reflect a mysterious light source shining from above. You can see the individual taste buds of the tongue in a section where teeth have fallen out, leaving the mouth with a section of gapping hole.

Up close his painting surfaces are quite smooth, unlike many of his previous canvases, which tended to be dirtier and more textured upon closer inspection. His subject matter feels familiar, that of the horror movie juxtaposed against the horror of our everyday realities. To the left of Expression Painting #1, hangs American Interior without Figure, a detailed painting of a room overflowing with flag paraphanallia. Aside red, white and blue drapes sit a bed whose dustcover, quilt and pillows have been invaded by the United States, a rug bellow the bed and a hooked rack above the bed continue the flag theme to its manifest destiny. The image feels exceedingly awkward and freakishly surreal when hung aside the image of the terrifying mouth. The overly kitsche composition, which in all probability was appropriated from Martha Stewart Living or Better Homes and Gardens now feels like the setting for something horribly wrong.

This ambiguous feeling of both fear and serenity is more clearly explored in the piece Interior with Blood and/or Wine #2, which consists of a dining table and chair looking quite ceremonious, floating in a background of pristine white, invading this austere environment is a hand that appears to be purposefully dumping a red liquid onto the table, soiling the clean situation leaving the white upholstered chair stained with the wine (and/or blood). It is an amiable decision to leave this decision to the viewer; leaving us to ponder whether the wine spilling from the non-discreet green mug might as well be, as Christ said his, “body and blood.”

Ward specifically cites Christianity as a jumping off point in what may be the most successful work in the show, St. Sebastian. For those unfamiliar with Sebastian, he is a man who died under the persecution of Christians by the Roman emperor Diocletian in the 3rd century. He has been a common subject historically in painting, being depicted as tied to a pole and pierced with arrows. Ward’s Sebastian is in actuality Pete Sampras, clutching his Wilson tennis racquet, eyes cinched and screaming in agony while hundreds of small red arrows fly towards his face.

It is exciting to see a painter with such excitement and exuberance in his work come to NY and have such a strong debut. After seeing these over-sized paintings with such quirky, open-ended subjects I can’t wait to see what Ward makes next.

Sean Ward New 65 Inch Paintings and Then Some is on display at Rare Gallery 521 W 26th St. New York, NY through November 4th.