John Heward (1934 - 2018)
visual artist

“Free Is Where I Live”: Remembering John Heward

By Eric Lewis

After a brief struggle with cancer, John Heward, one of Canada’s most profoundly creative improvisers, passed on November 6th, 2018. Internationally known as both a drummer and a visual artist (working primarily in painting and sculpture), his work in both media changed the Canadian artistic landscape. It is sometimes said that he painted like a drummer, and drummed like a painter. I think John would deny the implied opposition between the media to begin with and would instead draw our attention to what drove his creative practice in all media—a deep and abiding exploration of freedom, with all the responsibilities and possibilities that freedom can offer… John’s music and visual art, far from being haphazard, random, aleatory, or mindlessly spontaneous, is deeply personal, intentional, careful, and thoughtful. For John, freedom in art was a place to inhabit and explore, a way of being with not just aesthetic potentials, but with ethical and moral characteristics. Nor did John see an opposition between the abstraction characteristic of the improvisatory and figuration or structure. For John, freedom meant all artistic choices were up to him (and others who choose to inhabit the free), regardless of what sort of images or sounds might result.

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For Peggy Baker Dance Projects: selected artworks by John Heward were replicated for the set of who we are in the dark.