Biography
When I was a teenager, my father gave him his 35mm camera, and I began wandering around taking pictures of stuff I found interesting at the time. My professional photographer friends thought the images had artistic merit, which encouraged me to further my art. Influenced by the Photorealist artists, in the early 1980s I tried making paintings of the photos.
Those early works, while successful (I even made a sale), were put on hold while other life events intervened. In the mid-1990s I began painting again, this time in acrylic on canvas. My impetus was to recreate the early painting that I had sold, and always regretted doing so. I have been painting steadily ever since.
Over the years I have come to see my paintings as documents of things looked at but not seen, the ordinary environment that we live in but seldom examine closely. I believe that by close observation, which is necessary to translate source photographs to canvas, I can begin to uncover the grace that is hidden in the things around us. The paintings are my way of bearing witness, and of making people stop what they’re doing and pay attention, to something they may have never seen before, but that makes them feel “I know this.”
My subject matter is derived (with a few exceptions) from photographs I have taken over the past 40 years. Some older images may appear nostalgic, but that was never my intent. I am, however, ever intrigued at how the past lurks in the corners of the present, waiting to be rediscovered.
I am currently working on a series of house paintings. These simple, ordinary, unnoticed places have hidden interior lives, though they do not reveal them to us. The houses are from a variety of locations in the United States and Mexico. They are the place you grew up in, a place of nurture, experience, trial, memory and forgetting. They are all a common size, to symbolize our shared experience of being human.
Phyllis Lutjeans, Museum Educator and former curator, has said of my work: “Although Michael Ward may be called a neo-realist painter his work can ultimately be described as abstract realism. The picture image is photographically realistic, but within the context of the painting his compositions are complex and almost abstract. Deciphering the work section by section one sees how a multitude of individual complete compositions are put together to form the entire work. For me the viewer is confronted by a realistic image that puzzles us and clearly tells the story simultaneously.” Or as a young girl viewing my work at the Laguna Festival of Arts remarked, “You make the ordinary look beautiful.”
I am a self-taught artist, living and working in Costa Mesa, CA.
Solo Shows
Only See, Gallery 417, Los Angeles, CA, April 2019
Ordinary Beauty, Center Gallery, Anaheim, CA, October-December 2016
Retrospective Exhibition, CAP Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA, December 2014-February 2015
The Mystery of the Ordinary, Casa Romantica Cultural Center, San Clemente, CA, January-February, 2014
This is not a Photograph, Studio Gallery, Irvine, CA, January 2013
Orange County Airport Community Focus Space 2008-2009
Walkabout, Gallery 825, Los Angeles, 2008
Selected Group Shows
Laguna Beach Festival of Arts, Laguna Beach, CA, July-August 2013-2023
Pacific Art Foundation, May 2023
The Other Art Fair Los Angeles, March-April 2023
Cityscape XII, George Billis Gallery, Los Angeles, July-August 2022
Cityscape XI, George Billis Gallery, Los Angeles, July-August 2021
The Moleskine Project 2021, Spoke Art Gallery, San Francisco, CA, May 2021
Tondo 2021, Spoke Art Gallery, San Francisco, CA, April 2021
Car Culture, OCCCA, Santa Ana, CA, Feb-March 2021
Art Along the Coast, Laguna Beach, CA, August 2020, December 2020
Artist Alliance 2019 Biennial, December, 2019–May, 2020, Oceanside Museum of Art, Oceanside, CA
CAP Invitational, Laguna Beach, CA, July-August 2017
California: Weird, Wonderful + Wild. Group invitational show, Jen Tough Gallery, Vallejo, CA 2017
San Francisco to San Diego: California Urban Landscapes, California Art Club, Altadena, CA
Art Kudos International Competition 2016, Third Place
Best Coast, Golden West College, Huntington Beach, CA 2015
Signs Plus, Palette Gallery, Asbury Park NJ, 2015
206 Minna Gallery, San Francisco, CA, June-July, 2014
Group Show, Chemers Gallery, Tustin, CA, April 26-May 10, 2014
First place, Summer: an art exhibit, 2nd City Council Art Gallery, Charles Phoenix, juror, 2011
Summer Salon, Tirage Art Gallery, Pasadena, CA 2011
Guest Artist, The Artist Eye, Laguna Beach, CA 2011
The Neon Show, Austin Details, Austin, TX
Art Kudos International Competition 2010, finalist
2009 California Open Exhibition, Long Beach Arts, 2009 -- Sinéad Finnerty-Pyne, Curator
Venice Free Clinic Art Auction, 2009
Urban Ambience, Long Beach Arts, 2009 -- Mike Daniel, Juror
California Dreaming – Paintings of the Golden State, Tirage Art Gallery, 2009
California Visual Artists Group Show, 2nd City Council Art + Performance Space, Long Beach, CA 2009
Holiday Salon, Tirage Art Gallery, 2008
Artist Showcase, The LAB, Costa Mesa, CA 2008
Art Kudos International Competition 2007 – Peter Trippi, Fine Art Connoisseur, curator.
Artists Magazine, 24th Art Competition, Finalist (2x), Landscape -- Patricia Tobacco Forrester, juror
Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery Open Salon, 2007
Mesa Art Gallery, 2007
Art + Architecture Art Auction, West Hollywood, CA, 2007
Crackerjack Group Show, Gallery 825, Los Angeles, 2007 -- Jay Belloli, Armory Center for the Arts, curator
Venice Free Clinic Art Auction, Venice, CA, 2007
Sexy Beasts Group Show, Art Murmur Gallery, Los Angeles, 2007
TURF Group Show, Gallery 825, Los Angeles, 2007 -- Gregorio Luke, Museum of Latin American Art, curator
Los Angeles County Museum of Art Rental Gallery (ongoing)
Made in California, Brea Civic & Cultural Center, Brea, CA, 2007 -- Michelle Urton, LACMA, juror
Centered on the Center, Huntington Beach Art Museum, 2007
Open Show, Gallery 825, Los Angeles, 2006-7 -- Ann Philbin, Hammer Museum of Art, curator
Metroscapes (Group Show), Art Murmur Gallery, Los Angeles, 2006
Centered on the Center, Huntington Beach Art Museum, 2006
Made in California, Brea Civic & Cultural Center, Brea, CA, 2006 -- Michelle Deziel, Norton Simon Museum, juror
Artists Magazine, 22nd Art Competition, Finalist, Still Life -- Jane Jones, judge
Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery Open Salon, 2004
Orange County Artist Juried Exhibition, 2004
Orange County Biennial, 2001 -- Patricia Correia, juror
Made in California, City of Brea Art Museum, 1998
Galleries
Tirage Art Gallery
Leslie Levy Fine Art
Skidmore Contemporary Art
Interviews & Publications
New American Paintings Issue 163
Artsy Shark, April 2021
Asymmetric Magazine, Sept. 2020
Hyperrealism Magazine, Fall 2020
American Artist Dec./Jan. 2020
Northern Express, March 2019
Art Reveal Magazine, Issue 30
Featured Artist, Laguna Beach Arts, Summer, 2015
American Lifestyle, Issue 69
Studio Visit, Volume 35
Creative Quarterly, Issue 37
Featured Artist, Orange Coast Magazine, January 2013
Featured Artist, Blue Canvas magazine #12, 2012
Installation Magazine, 2013
Artist Portfolio Magazine issue 9
Art in the OC
Blue Canvas, Issue 12
Affiliations
Artist member, California Arts Club
Member, International Guild of Realism
When I was a teenager, my father gave him his 35mm camera, and I began wandering around taking pictures of stuff I found interesting at the time. My professional photographer friends thought the images had artistic merit, which encouraged me to further my art. Influenced by the Photorealist artists, in the early 1980s I tried making paintings of the photos.
Those early works, while successful (I even made a sale), were put on hold while other life events intervened. In the mid-1990s I began painting again, this time in acrylic on canvas. My impetus was to recreate the early painting that I had sold, and always regretted doing so. I have been painting steadily ever since.
Over the years I have come to see my paintings as documents of things looked at but not seen, the ordinary environment that we live in but seldom examine closely. I believe that by close observation, which is necessary to translate source photographs to canvas, I can begin to uncover the grace that is hidden in the things around us. The paintings are my way of bearing witness, and of making people stop what they’re doing and pay attention, to something they may have never seen before, but that makes them feel “I know this.”
My subject matter is derived (with a few exceptions) from photographs I have taken over the past 40 years. Some older images may appear nostalgic, but that was never my intent. I am, however, ever intrigued at how the past lurks in the corners of the present, waiting to be rediscovered.
I am currently working on a series of house paintings. These simple, ordinary, unnoticed places have hidden interior lives, though they do not reveal them to us. The houses are from a variety of locations in the United States and Mexico. They are the place you grew up in, a place of nurture, experience, trial, memory and forgetting. They are all a common size, to symbolize our shared experience of being human.
Phyllis Lutjeans, Museum Educator and former curator, has said of my work: “Although Michael Ward may be called a neo-realist painter his work can ultimately be described as abstract realism. The picture image is photographically realistic, but within the context of the painting his compositions are complex and almost abstract. Deciphering the work section by section one sees how a multitude of individual complete compositions are put together to form the entire work. For me the viewer is confronted by a realistic image that puzzles us and clearly tells the story simultaneously.” Or as a young girl viewing my work at the Laguna Festival of Arts remarked, “You make the ordinary look beautiful.”
I am a self-taught artist, living and working in Costa Mesa, CA.
Solo Shows
Only See, Gallery 417, Los Angeles, CA, April 2019
Ordinary Beauty, Center Gallery, Anaheim, CA, October-December 2016
Retrospective Exhibition, CAP Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA, December 2014-February 2015
The Mystery of the Ordinary, Casa Romantica Cultural Center, San Clemente, CA, January-February, 2014
This is not a Photograph, Studio Gallery, Irvine, CA, January 2013
Orange County Airport Community Focus Space 2008-2009
Walkabout, Gallery 825, Los Angeles, 2008
Selected Group Shows
Laguna Beach Festival of Arts, Laguna Beach, CA, July-August 2013-2023
Pacific Art Foundation, May 2023
The Other Art Fair Los Angeles, March-April 2023
Cityscape XII, George Billis Gallery, Los Angeles, July-August 2022
Cityscape XI, George Billis Gallery, Los Angeles, July-August 2021
The Moleskine Project 2021, Spoke Art Gallery, San Francisco, CA, May 2021
Tondo 2021, Spoke Art Gallery, San Francisco, CA, April 2021
Car Culture, OCCCA, Santa Ana, CA, Feb-March 2021
Art Along the Coast, Laguna Beach, CA, August 2020, December 2020
Artist Alliance 2019 Biennial, December, 2019–May, 2020, Oceanside Museum of Art, Oceanside, CA
CAP Invitational, Laguna Beach, CA, July-August 2017
California: Weird, Wonderful + Wild. Group invitational show, Jen Tough Gallery, Vallejo, CA 2017
San Francisco to San Diego: California Urban Landscapes, California Art Club, Altadena, CA
Art Kudos International Competition 2016, Third Place
Best Coast, Golden West College, Huntington Beach, CA 2015
Signs Plus, Palette Gallery, Asbury Park NJ, 2015
206 Minna Gallery, San Francisco, CA, June-July, 2014
Group Show, Chemers Gallery, Tustin, CA, April 26-May 10, 2014
First place, Summer: an art exhibit, 2nd City Council Art Gallery, Charles Phoenix, juror, 2011
Summer Salon, Tirage Art Gallery, Pasadena, CA 2011
Guest Artist, The Artist Eye, Laguna Beach, CA 2011
The Neon Show, Austin Details, Austin, TX
Art Kudos International Competition 2010, finalist
2009 California Open Exhibition, Long Beach Arts, 2009 -- Sinéad Finnerty-Pyne, Curator
Venice Free Clinic Art Auction, 2009
Urban Ambience, Long Beach Arts, 2009 -- Mike Daniel, Juror
California Dreaming – Paintings of the Golden State, Tirage Art Gallery, 2009
California Visual Artists Group Show, 2nd City Council Art + Performance Space, Long Beach, CA 2009
Holiday Salon, Tirage Art Gallery, 2008
Artist Showcase, The LAB, Costa Mesa, CA 2008
Art Kudos International Competition 2007 – Peter Trippi, Fine Art Connoisseur, curator.
Artists Magazine, 24th Art Competition, Finalist (2x), Landscape -- Patricia Tobacco Forrester, juror
Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery Open Salon, 2007
Mesa Art Gallery, 2007
Art + Architecture Art Auction, West Hollywood, CA, 2007
Crackerjack Group Show, Gallery 825, Los Angeles, 2007 -- Jay Belloli, Armory Center for the Arts, curator
Venice Free Clinic Art Auction, Venice, CA, 2007
Sexy Beasts Group Show, Art Murmur Gallery, Los Angeles, 2007
TURF Group Show, Gallery 825, Los Angeles, 2007 -- Gregorio Luke, Museum of Latin American Art, curator
Los Angeles County Museum of Art Rental Gallery (ongoing)
Made in California, Brea Civic & Cultural Center, Brea, CA, 2007 -- Michelle Urton, LACMA, juror
Centered on the Center, Huntington Beach Art Museum, 2007
Open Show, Gallery 825, Los Angeles, 2006-7 -- Ann Philbin, Hammer Museum of Art, curator
Metroscapes (Group Show), Art Murmur Gallery, Los Angeles, 2006
Centered on the Center, Huntington Beach Art Museum, 2006
Made in California, Brea Civic & Cultural Center, Brea, CA, 2006 -- Michelle Deziel, Norton Simon Museum, juror
Artists Magazine, 22nd Art Competition, Finalist, Still Life -- Jane Jones, judge
Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery Open Salon, 2004
Orange County Artist Juried Exhibition, 2004
Orange County Biennial, 2001 -- Patricia Correia, juror
Made in California, City of Brea Art Museum, 1998
Galleries
Tirage Art Gallery
Leslie Levy Fine Art
Skidmore Contemporary Art
Interviews & Publications
New American Paintings Issue 163
Artsy Shark, April 2021
Asymmetric Magazine, Sept. 2020
Hyperrealism Magazine, Fall 2020
American Artist Dec./Jan. 2020
Northern Express, March 2019
Art Reveal Magazine, Issue 30
Featured Artist, Laguna Beach Arts, Summer, 2015
American Lifestyle, Issue 69
Studio Visit, Volume 35
Creative Quarterly, Issue 37
Featured Artist, Orange Coast Magazine, January 2013
Featured Artist, Blue Canvas magazine #12, 2012
Installation Magazine, 2013
Artist Portfolio Magazine issue 9
Art in the OC
Blue Canvas, Issue 12
Affiliations
Artist member, California Arts Club
Member, International Guild of Realism
