“There is an unpretentious grace to these new works; a grace that comes from the artist’s patient and modest sensibility, his skilful observation and his empathy for living things.”
Tom Carment extract from catalogue essay Mark Ward Paintings and Prints GIG Gallery Glebe Sydney 18 August – 30 August 2009
“Mark Ward’s work speaks with an immediacy that is complex and subtle – his often whimsical and always engaging articulation of a ‘youthful language’ is like a low murmur, inviting the viewer to spend time with individual works. Systematically modest, discreet rather than spectacular, it is conducive to intimacy...(The) work effortlessly takes us to a world that exists somewhere between the real and the fugitive, and it keeps us there.”
Cathy Peake extract from catalogue essay Mark Ward - The Real and the Fugitive 2007
“His is a very personal, very poetic, very gentle and at times very humorous response to the environment. It requires a particular sensibility to identify, select and finally transform such unlikely material into the magical forms shown in this exhibition.“
Guy Warren extract from catalogue essay Mark Ward A Survey – Sculpture and Assemblage 1982 – 1994 New England Regional Art Museum Armidale NSW 26 August – 25 September 1994
“Mark Ward has an exhibition of paintings and linocuts at the Woolloomooloo Gallery. The latter, done in the 1980’s, are quite brilliantly balanced with deceptively plaited whites and blacks, especially in the Gippsland landscapes and the rhythmically entrancing Double Landscape, which should weigh heavily in the scales of justice.”
Testament to Friendliness by Elwyn Lynn The Weekend Australian September 30 – October 1, 1989