Longtime Grounds for Sculpture resident artist Clifford Ward has first exhibition on view there

HAMILTON TWP., New Jersey (WPVI) -- Paid Sponsor Partnership: Philadelphia Corporation for Aging

Artist Clifford Ward is enjoying a view from the top in the Museum Building at the Grounds for Sculpture in Hamilton Township, New Jersey.

"My exhibition is called 'I'll Make Me A World,'" says Ward. "That's my first show here on the Grounds."

He's created multiple series over his 27 years as an artist-in-residence there.

"It's a vision I've had," he says. "My work is very mythological."

The new exhibition is the culmination of his work.

"I'm just on a quest, a journey of trying to figure out where I come from, but I'm trying to do it intuitively and through my art," he says. "It's really showing who I am."

The centerpiece of the show is his "Animism" series, which has 24 figures that are six to nine feet each.

Ward says he worked twelve years on this series.

"They're all guardians," he says.

He also uses hybrids of animals in his work. He says the figures have a "spirituality with them."

"My work is inspired by so many things, mostly indigenous cultures, of course the African diaspora, Native Americans, the Mori people in New Zealand," he says. "I feel so free because I create my own language."

Art is a second act Ward pursued around age 40.

"I didn't study art," he says. "I just had this affinity to make work."

He creates all his work on site, and his medium of choice is plaster bandage.

"When you wet it, it becomes very malleable, almost like a, it's a fabric," he says. "And it just adds a nice layer of texture to the piece while giving the reinforcement to the piece itself."

He started as an apprentice at the Johnson Atelier Technical Institute of Sculpture, an artist incubator on the Grounds.

"I came in in 1997, had no experience with metal chasing or the casting process, but I learned that entire process here, and I worked with some major artists like Kiki Smith, Elizabeth Catlett, Joyce J. Scott, George Segal, Seward Johnson," he says. "I worked with a number of artists that were literally from around the world here."

He says the knowledge he learned while working in that collective environment allowed him to "really flourish as an artist."

"I'll Make Me A World," is Ward's first exhibition in a decade, last exhibiting at Fresno College in California.

"There's a life force. I want people to feel the soul that's in the work," he says.

Clifford Ward's exhibition, "I'll Make Me A World," will be on view in the Museum Building at the Grounds for Sculpture through January 11, 2026.

For more information:

Artist Clifford Ward
"I'll Make Me A World" at Grounds for Sculpture

Grounds for Sculpture
80 Sculptors Way
Hamilton Township, NJ 08619