Event Horizon

Sean Christopher Ward is an interdisciplinary artist focusing his efforts of painting in the style of op art, with major influences from Masters of the movement, like Bridget Riley and Victor Vasarely, who utilize flat design to create depth and kinetic movement through strict hard edges and the utilization of masterfully placed colors side by side or next to negative space to keep the works constantly moving within the optics of the viewer. Now extending past the singular flat plane, I am expanding to fully immersive projection mapping experiences, where the artwork surrounds you in every direction! Overall, both painterly and digital immersive artworks, I utilize a process to create my artwork that is a mixture of traditional and digital techniques. It begins in the digital realm of Adobe Illustrator to create the design of the works first and foremost, to achieve ultra-crisp and planned results, then transitioning into the traditional realm of hand painting all the fields of colors onto the individual layers of the painting. Then, with projection mapping and animation creation, I utilize Adobe After Effects and Resolume Arena to create these immersive environments that go hand and hand with the art, and sometimes, the musicians, I partner with to create multi-media exhibitions. The multiple processes sounds overwhelming, but it has become common practice for Sean’s different styles of works to utilize every method of technology possible to create and maintain a commitment to excellence through the weeks of time it takes to complete each individual piece. With works in over 800 permanent and private collections spanning the world, including Canada, France, Germany, India, Italy, Morocco, Japan, Puerto Rico, Qatar, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the US Virgin Islands, the reach of the artwork is expanding as each year progresses! Notable works in private collections include Bob Dylan, Julie Floyd, Julien Hall, Elton John, Milan Kordestani, Aaron Lux, The Center for Women’s Wellness, The ICT Pop-Up Park, The Pixies and Universal Studios Japan. One of his most recent ventures is working alongside Aarox Lux to turn Sean’s artwork into four two story walls on two beachside homes in Cabo, Mexico, to give some creative flair to the community!

“Chromatic Hallucinations” is a body of work that focuses on the ideals of pattern. It can represent many different things throughout humanity. The people, the beliefs they follow, the natural world around you, the history of subjects and the traditions that have been followed. Different colors and shapes vary meanings throughout different cultures, but the idea is carried down from generation to generation. From birth to death, pattern is a part of everyday life and cultural practice. The drive to recognize and form patterns can be from a glimpse into curiosity, discovery of new ideas and experimentation through everyday life. Da Vinci found this “Way of Stimulating and Arousing the Mind to Various Inventions” so invaluable that he applied it not only visually, as a means of inventing landscape or battle scenes, but in musical matters as well. The more patterns we can recognize, the wider our imaginative and creative scope. There is a revolution in the science of design under way, and most people, including designers, aren’t even aware it is taking place. Color, for example, was just researched to find that simply glancing at shades of green can boost creativity and motivation. It is easy to assume that there is correlation between verdant colors and vegetation capable of bearing food, which would mentally trigger the thought of nourishment. There is a science between window views of landscapes aiding in patient recovery, learning in classrooms and expanding productivity in the workplace. Additionally, certain patterns also have a universal appeal. Humanity responds dramatically to balanced pattern so much so that it has been researched to reduce stress levels by as much as 60 percent, just by being the field of vision of the viewer. In a recent piece for Medium, Kevin Ashton recently analyzed “how experts think.” Stating, “It turns out patterns matter, and they matter a lot. A star football quarterback needs to recognize all kinds of patterns – from the type of defense he’s facing, to the patterns his receivers are running, to the typical reactions of defenders. These, of course, has to happen in a matter of nanoseconds, as a 300-pound lineman is bearing down on you, intent on ripping you limb from limb.” The more you are thinking about pattern, the more you can see patterns all around you. Get to work on time in the morning is the result of recognizing patterns in your daily commute and responding to changes in schedule and traffic. Diagnosing an illness is the result of recognizing patterns in human behavior. The same goes for just about any field of expert endeavor – it’s just a matter of recognizing the right patterns faster than anyone else. The future of intelligence is in making our patterns better, our heuristics stronger. In Kevin Ashton’s previously mentioned article, he refers to this as “Selective Attention” which is about focusing on what really matters so that poor selections are removed before they ever hit the conscious brain. While some may be skeptical of Kurzweil’s Pattern Recognition Theory of Mind, they also tend to admit that Kurzweil is a genius. One thing is clear, and that is being able to recognize patterns is much what gave humans their evolutionary edge over animals.