Ashley Benton

Ceramic figure on wood block: 'Enough of this'

2021

Ashley is an American artist living in Savannah Georgia. Her work and practice is primarily mixed media paintings and sculptures with a focus on ceramics. “ My work begins with the subtle impressions left from living a life” Through Emotionally charged ideas and recurring imagery the viewer is encouraged to participate in a dialogue that hovers between dreams and reality inviting them to create their own story. ‘My work begins with the subtle impressions left from living a life. I use recurring imagery of rabbits, birds, wings, hoods and caps, flora even missing body parts almost like a key to a map. The recurring images can be symbolic of a tendency, a comment on a belief or an anecdote. While I am working it is like a private message between me and the piece, which becomes a public conversation inviting the viewer to have their own experience. Occasionally it turns out it is the same experience for the viewer as it was for me and this reveals our commonality. This is important to me because we all have our individual story. It lingers in the unconscious. My work can act as a retrieval cue. Stories, poems, songs, relationships are all there until I start to daydream getting out of the thinking mind. I can let any new version be told much like a writer of fiction. There are silver linings, dead ends, sharp curves, love, loss, vulnerability, blue skies, dark clouds, deep water and pretty little things. We have our own version of all these things. It is what makes us unique as well as binds us together and it all hovers between reality and a dream.’ - Ashley Benton