A two-decade survey of works by Jamaican-born, Harlem-based artist Nari Ward includes found objects, and expresses the complexity of cultural identity. Sun Splashed is now at The Barnes Foundation through August 22nd.
Radio script:
Through art, you get to realize something else about yourself through something that isn't you, isn't part of you. It's a basic component, but it's so important for thinking about the world. - Nari Ward
Susan Lewis: Dressed in a pink shirt and straw hat, like a musician in a mento band, the artist poses in a photograph, next to a large house plant; but oddly, both have just been watered.
Nari Ward: I liked the mystery this character had and how displaced...
SL: Jamaican Artist Nari Ward moved to New York in his early teens.
NW: The reason why I honed in on the houseplant is this idea of not having roots, but being in a place that’s not necessarily endemic to your origin—at the same time fragile but still resilient and surviving.
SL: Mystery and transformation figure prominently in Ward’s work: foam, old battery canisters and mango seeds become towering snowmen-shaped sculptures called Mango Tourists; oven pans and scorched baseball bats become a giant shining mural called Iron Heavens. A frequent medium? Found objects on the street.
NW: Primarily because I want to figure out how to have a conversation with the viewer... They think they know this thing.. my job is to take them on a journey with it, and maybe take them into a space they don’t know, and see the thing differently.
SL: A fan of reggae, Ward finds commonality between his art and music.
NW: When I think about how to change something, I think about repetition, and then I also think about what can contradict that repetition. I think about that visual rhythm of the work, and for me that’s aligned with music.
SL: Nari Ward’s work has been shown at the Guggenheim, the Whitney Biennial, and other major venues in the United States and Europe.