Peter Blum Gallery is pleased to present vector specter, an exhibition of new works by Brooklyn-based artist, Rebecca Ward. This marks the artist’s second solo exhibition with the gallery. The exhibition will run through May 31, 2025, at 176 Grand Street, New York, NY.

Rebecca Ward's practice merges painting, sculpture, and craft by physically deconstructing and reassembling canvases to create geometrically grounded works. By exposing the multidimensional nature of painting and its constituent parts, Ward creates a spatial play of harmonious forms and color interactions that explore the relationship between the mathematical and the natural world.

In the current exhibition, Ward delves into the complex interplay between transparency and the spectral presence of the abstract. Through a manipulation of reassembled materials and viscous gradients, the artist explores spectrums—both literal and metaphorical—where shadow and form transcend their physical boundaries. The work invites viewers to contemplate the delicate nature of perception, blurring the lines between the tangible and the ethereal. Ghostly silhouettes, fragmented and elusive, emerge from the translucency of unwoven canvas, embodying the shifting forms that shape understanding of reality.

Each of the ten works in the exhibition incorporate both hard-edged and curving forms that emerge from rectangular canvas planes, with varying scales, tonalities, and configurations. The shapes originate as digital drawings within a mathematical space—a vector that can be infinitely large or small—before being enclosed within the confines of stretcher bars. This initial step of creating sketches involves layering dissected forms and diverse shades that persist in the final handcrafted, sculptural objects.

The titles add layers of associations as in Ward’s two largest works to date, soft landing and sea creature, that required a highly physical approach in construction and washes of color. In hunger and hunger II, geometric sections of canvas are hand-dyed and painted in a spectrum of pinks and maroons, evoking wider associations of tone. A signature of Ward’s practice over the past decade has included taking fabric apart by removing the weft to create a new and transparent image. Particularly prevalent in open secret, yet present in each of the works, is unraveled canvas that both exposes and obscures the underlying stretcher bars.

The woven canvas can be understood as a physical representation of a mathematical grid, where the warp and weft create a regular pattern of squares and rectangles, a visual reflection of geometric order. As a queer identified person, Ward combines curving lines and axis to demonstrate that masculinity and femininity are not fixed, binary concepts, but are dynamic, evolving, and context dependent. In this way, the grid becomes a representation of the slippage between forms that can be viewed as bodies, vessels, graphs, or purely geometric outlines. Through these methods, Ward communicates the presence of what shapes cannot be fully grasped, offering a meditation on the nature of being, absence, and spaces in between.

"The title of the show is a direct reference to my process, where I start by creating digital drawings before translating them into hand-crafted works. A vector is a drawing that exists in a mathematical space. A shape can become infinitely smaller or infinitely bigger. 'Specter' plays on the idea of spectrums and shadows. Color and shadows emerge from the interplay of transparency and gradient. A key part of my process involves removing the threads from the canvas and revealing the underlying stretcher bars so the viewer sees the nature of the fabric itself. This exposes how fabric is woven, and unraveling canvas offers insight into that process."

— Rebecca Ward, Arte Realizzata, 2025

"Process and deconstruction are somehow reflective of all I am as a queer person, part of my nature is to want to dismantle something first and then put it back together, so for me it’s about breaking something apart to be able to understand it."

— Rebecca Ward, Shadowplay Magazine, 2025

"In the painting soft landing, viewers encounter a naturalistic approach to geometric shapes, where sand and peach hued semi-circles and squares bump up against similarly shaped cobalt and pale blue patterns. The entire painting, which is quite large at 96 x 72 in, is capped at the bottom by a spectacular deep blue striation pattern, calling to mind a woven textile. One perfect off-white square is nestled at the top right of the piece, but all across the canvas lines flow into unexpected places and do not meet, mimetic of a deeply oceanic sentiment." 

– Ash Davila, Critic's Chronicle, 2025

"In fast asleep (2025), a diptych mirrors in deep charcoals and graphite grays, Ward’s process is at its most austere and refined. Shapes fold and intersect across the stitched surface, each plane dyed to a slightly different value. The compositional balance hinges on subtle asymmetry: tonal shifts, directional seams, and the contrast between smooth expanses and tightly striated passages. A dark, slow rhythm emerges across both panels, held in suspension."

— Jae Kim, Plus Magazine, 2025

"The works reconfigure canvas planes, with Ward assembling and layering geometric gradients, each constituent piece uniform in palette but quilted to often complementary though sometimes contrasting colored forms. bite marks and bite marks II, for instance, posit an array of parallelogram strips and semi-circular elements, enclosed by stretcher bars, each parcel a distinct cardinal tone. The shifting red spectra, moving from plum to vermillion to cyan, suggests the uneven trade of sunlight with shadow. phenomenomena repeats this palette-based convention, ribboning caliginous cerulean shades to lapis bands and sky-blue masts."

— Ekin Erkan, Brooklyn Rail, 2025

"For this show, I found myself exploring the concept of shadows, and these works examine that idea in multiple dimensions. Shadows play a role in how a line or image recedes into space or comes into sharper focus, creating an interplay between the foreground, middle ground, and background. Each shadow shifts the viewer’s perception of dimensional space. Many of the lines don’t match up intentionally, and this is a nod to their origins as digital drawings. For the piece open secret, for example, one layer involves the silhouettes of curved forms cast onto the strings, while the upper canvas portion displays a sewn shadow of the same curving shape. There is also a shadow that appears on the wall, created by the removal of the weft and the attachment of the warp to the frame."

— Rebecca Ward, Arte Realizzata, 2025