Listen Love marks a shift from Beard’s earlier hard-edged abstract paintings developed after the “monoline” series. While the gestural language and attention to spatial balance remain central to the work, this body of paintings moves toward the creation of objects with a stronger sense of physical presence and weight.
In contrast to the flatness and digitally inflected scale of previous works, these pieces emphasise materiality and bodily relation. Changes in scale and format invite a more intimate encounter, encouraging viewers to consider the work in relation to their own physical presence in space.

Beard’s practice often incorporates deliberate obstacles within the process of making. Automatic drawing remains an important compositional tool, but the introduction of unwieldy materials and repetitive actions disrupts the ease of this method. These interruptions prevent the process from becoming purely automatic and instead introduce moments of resistance and negotiation.

Through repetition, material difficulty, and shifts in scale, Listen Love explores the tension between instinctive gesture and physical constraint, allowing the act of painting to remain active, embodied, and responsive.