Description
Since the sixties, John Heward has pursued an intuitive and unique pictorial and sculptural practice. He is inspired by aesthetic codes borrowed as much from abstract expressionism as from minimal art. The artist alternates between artistic improvisation and methodical exploration. He favours the raw aspect of materials – canvases, rayon, vinyl, paper, bronze, steel and aluminum – and spontaneous gestures to achieve oscillation between abstraction and geometry. Beyond the formal boundaries of the frame and pedestal, Heward allows his work to occupy the real space of the exhibition through various modes of presentation where the object is constantly changing.
Born in Montreal in 1934, John Heward has more than 40 solo exhibitions under his belt, including ones at the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center (Atlanta, 2011), the Museum of Contemporary Art (Toronto, 2009), the Paul Kuhn Gallery (Calgary, 2009) and at the Centre Culturel Canadien (Paris, 2000). In 2008, the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec did a major retrospective of his work. Among the major group exhibitions in which he participated were Traffic : Conceptual Art in Canada c. 1965 to 1980 (Toronto, Montreal, Halifax, Vancouver, 2010-2012), Québec/New York (New York, 2001), Peinture, Peinture (Montreal, 1998), La Biennale de Montréal (1998), and Les Cent jours d’art contemporain de Montréal (1987). In 2012, he was the recipient of the prestigious Paul-Émile Borduas Award. The artist is represented by Galeries Bellemare Lambert in Montreal.
Source of the text: http://fonderiedarling.org
