Holly Ward

Holly Ward (b. 1973 in Saint John, New Brunswick) is an interdisciplinary artist of settler ancestry based in Vancouver, BC, and Ik'emlúps te Secwépems/Heffley Creek, BC. Ward's work utilizes sculpture, multi-media installation, architecture, video and drawing as a means to examine the role of aesthetics in the formation of new social realities.

Life Ward obtained a BA in English from the University of New Brunswick in 1995 and went on to obtain a BFA, Interdisciplinary from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in 1999. In 2006, Ward completed her MFA, Studio at the University of Guelph. From 2009 to 2010, Ward was the artist-in-residence at Langara College, wherein she commenced The Pavilion project, a 22 geodesic dome artistic experimentation involving artists, writers, designers, and Langara College students. She is also an Associate Professor in the Visual Arts Program at York University. In recent years, her work has increasingly engaged with non-human entities and ecological systems, emphasizing sustainability and holistic adaptation in response to evolving natural and cultural conditions. Island consisted of a large pile of soil that was moved by volunteers to different parts of the gallery during the show. Vancouver Art Gallery curator, Kathleen Ritter said of Island, "it's a playfully irreverent work and it challenged our conventional notions of the art object being static, by making something that has an almost parasitical relationship with the other works in the exhibition." In 2018, a new installation by Ward, Raw Goods, was shown at the Polygon Gallery in Vancouver as part of their inaugural exhibition, N.Vancouver. The work consisted of "two wide, cone-like piles - one coal, one sulphur. Both commodities are integral to the local economy, and the sulphur's bright yellow is a familiar sight for anyone who has spent time on the Stanley Park seawall across the Inlet."

In 2016, Ward's work Industry is Useless Without Culture: REsource Extraction #1-3 was acquired by the Vancouver Art Gallery for its permanent collection. Her work is also held in the collections of Fogo Island Arts and Scotiabank. Her notable public commissions include Cosmic Chandelier (UniverCity at Simon Fraser University, Burnaby), Monument to the Vanquished Peasant (Western Front, Vancouver), and The Wall (CBC and the Vancouver Heritage Foundation).

Select solo exhibitions 2017, Holly Ward: Planned Peasanthood, Kamloops Art Gallery, Kamloops, BC 2009, Here & There, Republic Gallery, Vancouver, BC 2008, Radical Rupture, Morris and Helen Belkin Gallery, Vancouver, BC 2004-2005, The Future Is Now, L’Oeil de Poisson, Quebec, PQ, Or Gallery, Vancouver, BC, YYZ Artist’s Outlet, Toronto, ON

Select group exhibitions 2025, Town + Country: Narratives of Property and Capital, Morris and Helen Belkin Gallery, Vancouver, BC 2019, Displacement, Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, BC 2018, N.Vancouver, Polygon Gallery, Vancouver, BC 2010, Invitation to an Infiltration, Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver, BC 2009, How Soon Is Now, Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, BC 2007, Gasoline Rainbows, Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver, BC 2006, Until Then Then, Western Front, Vancouver, BC

Publications Ward’s publications include Planned Peasanthood (Kamloops Art Gallery, 2021), an ongoing interdisciplinary artist project that examines the historical figure of the peasant worker in relation to the contemporary subject, Volumes (Blackwood Gallery, 2015), and Every Force Evolves a Form (Artspeak, 2012). Her work is also discussed in Jeff Derksen’s After Euphoria (JRP Ringier Press, 2013), which features the critical essay For Now, on Holly Ward’s Persistence of Vision.