Robin Ward at Lisa Dent

At least six different animal species were pictured in Robin Ward's “Otherkin,” an exhibition of 17 graphite and gouache works (all 2003-2004). Three more recent images were executed on smoothly surfaced wood panels, the rest on paper. None measures any larger than 32 inches in either dimension, making for a seductive viewing experience that leads the observer into imaginary spaces of understated intimacy. Populating these spaces are animals and a few human protagonists, many of whom appear anxiously poised, as if on a tightrope between panic and indolence.

The term “otherkin” refers to a community of believers who see themselves as harboring animal natures within human bodies. Ward's portrayals, however, typically reverse that idea to reveal how animals can seem uncannily human. For example, in Snow Mixed with Water , we see a quintet of snow monkeys semi-submerged in a pond located under the canopy provided by three leafless trees. Two of these monkeys return the viewer's gaze, as if to offer a mild rebuke to an act of uninvited voyeurism, even as they also register an impassivity that suggests theatergoers waiting for an intermission to end. In Butterfairy , Ward gives us a rare glimpse of a human subject, in this case a flatly painted woman, a vintage hairdryer dangling above her head, who fights off a swarm of butterflies before a dozen onlookers, each betraying a bemused interest in the eventual outcome of this surrealistic contest.

Ward's ability to inflect her subjects with psychological complexity is enhanced by the effortlessness of her delicate mark-making and sensitive asymmetry of pictorial organization. The images are all landscapes of a sort, but they seem even closer to being places where dreams reside. Given last spring's surfeit of gallery exhibitions of hybrid drawing/painting works on paper (all seeming to be a neo-Medievalist reaction to the previous year's emphasis on technologically oriented art), it is heartening to see an artist exploring this idiom in a way that gives viewers as much to think about as it gives them to see.

–Mark Van Proyen, October 2005, p.189