Biography
 

ANDREW JAMES WARD, born 1954, studied at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, Dundee.

In 1978 - 80 he travelled through Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda and Kenya. Living with and portraying tribal people. This work was sponsored by the British Council and exhibited at the French Cultural Centre, Nairobi.

In 1982 he went to live in Switzerland where he opened SOS (School of Seeing), a school furthering the creative process - for individual students and teacher-training seminars.

In 1990 he grounded Labyrinth Publishing.
The first book nach aussen – nach innen , won the prize of “The most Beautiful Swiss Book, Art Section 1991”. A further four publications followed.
Wir bleiben bis ihr geht (1992): Crossing (1994); Frankie Klingeling and Teenage Blue (1995)

In 1994 - 96 he worked in performance under Antonio Neiwiller (Italy) and Gerard Personier (CH). Over the next four years creating and performing his own works. In 1996 the performance/music video Vindonisa was made together with Paul Giger (ECM Rec.)

In 1996 he was guest lecturer at Zurich University, exploring art as a medium of communication and learning (Neue Lernkultur).

In 1997 a documentary film was made of his work (Tamangur), by director Stephen Macmillan. It was short listed for the Grand Prix at the Paris Art film Festival, and won the Grand Prix at Les Diablerets film festival, Switzerland, and Directors award at the Slovenian Film Festival.

In 1999 he was invited to Taiwan, Korea and the Philippines to work on an art installation on the theme of sex slavery. It was sponsored by, among others, Pro- Helvetia, Arts Council of Switzerland, Alexander Schmidheiny Stiftung, Osram and IFOR. The finished installation is at present on a world tour.

He is represented in Switzerland by the Galerie Andres Thalmann

In 2005 he returned to live in Scotland.

2007 Completion of the installation Bardic Voyage consisting of 12 large semi-abstract portraits of local bards encased in weather-proof acrylic glass frames and installed on three CalMac ferryboats and terminal buildings.
Sponsored by Bord Na Gaidhlig, Caledonian MacBrayne and Tomatin Distillery.

2010 Completion of an installation commissioned by Tomatin Distillery of 9 large portraits (2.5 x 1.6m) to be installed in the distillery.

2011 At present working on an animation film based on 100 paintings of wild salmon that have rapidly been dying out since the introduction of fish farming on the west coast of Scotland.

 

Interviews with Andrew

Click here to listen to an interview with Andrew on Radio Scotland.