Abbi Ward

Expressionistic portraiture is my passion. Being able to hear, feel and see the inner personality of a person through mental observations, conjuring up inner emotions and displaying them on the canvas. Bringing the inside out. Creating a portrait with sound and vision from within.

When I was 6yrs old I started drawing eyes, trying to express the inner emotions I and people close to me were feeling. Later I became absorbed in the human mind and how it played tricks on the subconscious, enabling creativity to either flourish or deteriorate.

My path of life has been diverse in mental capacity, filled to the brim with severely disabled and psychologically unstable people throughout my upbringing and maturity. My child's disabilities have led me to become a voluntary artist and designer for these   special young individuals, for whom many normalities of everyday life are very defined. Giving them a chance to speak and express themselves through creativity. Therapeutically off-loading inner frustrations onto the canvas and enabling them to feel proud of their creativity.

Throughout history many of the greatest masterpieces were portraits. My inspiration is drawn from art of the great academic masters, such as Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Van Dyke, Ingres, J.L.David and William Adolphe Bouguereau. Although more Psychologically through the eyes of Munch, Dali and Van Gogh.

My artistic soul is neither competitive nor financial. I have developed a style with an inner voice and would prefer respect and recognition for the unheard voices I have freed. Michelangelo said "the greater danger is not that our hopes are too high and we fail to reach them; it s that they re too low and we do".

I have studied carefully portraiture, masterful in emotional depth, visiting exhibitions afar, such as Van Gogh, Salvador Dali, Picasso, Munch, Goya and Michelangelo. After examining their masterpieces, I always consider the best way to incorporate their creative genius into my own work. I also try to understand through my own experiences in mental illness, how they channelled their inner voice into their creativity.

I like my models to pose and mimic very expressive facial gestures they would use or feel when I   say certain emotionally striking sentences. I prefer painting from photography, to get a brief outline of their proportions, although the fabulous changes in colour and form   only recognised in life models, can sometimes be misleading. I then, engulf myself in my portraits, putting very deep emotional expression into what I would understand that person to be feeling. Bringing the inner soul and personality, out onto the canvas in an expressionistic portrait.

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