Henry Ward, Album at Canal Boat Contemporary, August 2025 – It probably would be fair to say 2025 hasn’t been the London Art Scene’s greatest year,  the summer has been almost soporific, disjointed, this is an uninspired, uninspiring London art year, especially it has to be said, in terms of artist-led endeavour. You might say that’s just me? I don’t know, maybe it is? Maybe. One small bright light has been the Summer Season of weekly Canal Boat Contemporary exhibitions in that glass-fronted notice board style case on the side of that canal boat that has been moving up and down the Regents Canal for the last couple of months. This week the boat has edged through the narrows of Islington Tunnel that takes the Regent’s Canal some 960 yards under Islington, the longest such tunnel in London, miraculously avoiding any damage to the gallery sign on the top of the board, the boat is now tied up by the rather sanitised Coal Drop Yard in the coffee shop infested Kings Cross area of the city.  This week we find the boat’s exhibition box occupied by a rather interesting painter called Henry Ward, here, have another #43SecondFilm…

Henry Ward works primarily as a painter, he also makes drawings and small sculptures, it is his paintings that feature in this small exhibition. An artist interested in “exploring the language of paint by investigating the threshold between abstraction and representation” and that really is what we find in this show, smaller abstract paintings on paper (small in size only, once again these are big paintings) and yes, once again we are kind of hampered by the reflections and it isn’t ideal but then there are enough people stopping, these exhibitions do engage and surely as artists that is what we all want? Well one of many things, we artists are demanding creatures. I like Henry’s work, I like the way he moves paint, the way it never feels overworked or pushed too far, that he seems to instinctively know when to stop (which is why he was invited to take part on the most recent of Cultivate’s Mixtape exhibitions). There’s a strong sense of colour, or the relationships of colour, hey look, it isn’t something to over analyse, I just like where Henry Ward puts his paint, I like his decisions, his economies,his shapes, it isn’t less is more, there is a lot here, there’s a control though, a sense of a painter in control – 

“Album is an invitation to discover narrative in spacing and the relationships between paintings. Working with the Box’s noticeboard format like a comic book, Henry is set to arrange works on paper across multiple sizes – treating the gaps as gutters, the whole composition a serialised comic album – urging viewers to shape stories and characters between the frames” –  Not sure if we’re really seeing the relationships, the gaps as gutters, was that a little ambitious with that glass reflection and that need to crouch down a little on the towpath (although the boat is a little higher this week that it has been at other spots), this isn’t a show you can comfortably stand back from and take a contemplative overview.  I am enjoying these as individual pieces, isolating each one from the crowd, I do like the crowd, I do like the busy box and the number of pieces in there. And of course there are relationships, colours talking to each other across the show, not really seeing the comic album aspect and I hadn’t read that before hand, I do tend to avoid reading too much about a show before I see it, I might just have to go back again before the show ends. And yes, it is more than worth another look, which of course you can do at anytime,  there it is just waiting by the towpath twenty four hours a day, not far from Kings Cross railway station, this is a painting show well worth taking the time to check out, as all of the boat’s shows this Summer…  (sw)   

The Henry Ward exhibition is on until August 12th at Coal Drop Yard, Kings Cross, London. A six or seven minute walk from Kings Cross railway station

Instagram: Canal Boat Contemporary /  Henry Ward / henryhward.com

Previously

ORGAN THING: Back to the delight of the Canal Boat Contemporary, last week that box on the side of the boat featured the paintings of Lucile Haefflinger, this week we find Lindsay Mapes and her excellent Pick’n Mix installation…

ORGAN THING: Tony Rainbird and his painterly zing in the box on the toepath at Canal Boat Contemporary, Victoria Park, East London…

As always, please do click on an image to see the whole thing or to run the slide show…