Carly Ashdown
The Rising
Ellery
Fire Flows
The Awakening
Nightingale
Nurture
Artist Statement
Carly Ashdown is a mixed-media artist working out of her studio in London. With the human form as her main subject matter, she uses paint and other media to create a myriad of emotions which echo the human experience.
Carly has always been driven by a deep interest in understanding people and their lives. All of her childhood drawings focused on human interaction and emotions and this influence only grew stronger with the passing years. After completing an arts degree in Leeds in 2004 she focused herself on a new educational path studying and training in Counseling and Psychotherapy at the Tavistock Institute, London. Feeling a deep kinship to the questioning minds of philosopher Alan Watts and comedian Bill Hicks, Carly was inspired to explore her own relationship to life and particularly the idea of personal transformation. These explorations of how we have come to understand ourselves, the world and our place in it, have deeply influenced her art.
Alan Watts was once quoted as saying ‘Reality is only a Rorschach ink-blot, you know’ cutely capturing the essence of Carly’s own ideas:
“We tend to limit ourselves through our fixed perceptions, my work is an invitation to step into a way of perceiving beyond what we know in our everyday lives”.
Carly Ashdown on Castle Galleries
Carly Ashdown at Advocate Gallery
Carly Ashdown on Art Takes London
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