At Home with the Ashtons•••••

Ben Ashton in the Bloomsbury Studio. Photograph by Fiona Garden

Simon Oldfield Gallery is pleased to present At Home with the Ashtons, a new series of paintings and installations by Ben Ashton; his second UK solo show.

Ashton’s refined and engaging paintings and installations continue the debate within his work that combines art historical technique with contemporary ideas and references. In this new series, Ashton distils the domestic rituals of life, which are then elevated by the myriad of art historical references. He challenges us to look at what we are seeing and to question it by presenting us with a different perspective on a familiar world; reflecting the magnetism between two people and all those who enter their world.

Ashton’s exciting and original artistic vision leads him to employ imagery that removes the elevation of the subject through mythical role play and instead presents snapshots of everyday life in his studio, where he lives and works with his wife, Fiona; capturing them and their guests in public and private moments of work and play. Through these striking paintings and installations, Ashton gives the viewer permission to be the voyeur and enter private moments of the beautifully mundane to the intimately explicit, which would otherwise be hidden from public gaze.

We are able to identify with all of the subjects and the situations in which they find themselves – intensely discussing how to pay the bills, or sinking into the water of a recently run bath while being watched by the one you love, or stepping indoors with rain drenched hair. Ashton manages to capture the immediate in his paintings, thus challenging and acknowledging the spectral presence of photography for contemporary painters.

Boundless and frozen, the paintings and installations take the viewer into a world confined within the walls of the artist’s studio and bring forward a selected version of a recorded instant. The sheer physicality of the paint and the optical illusions created by Ashton’s installations, serve to intensify the experience of looking into his world, but in contrast to a photograph the subjects appear divorced from the reality of the scene. Placing a layer of artifice and presenting a conscious evolution that seeks to capture the intricacy of illusion and collusion.

It is an approach underpinned by Ashton's continued interest in stereoscopy and optical illusion, which serves to place the emphasis on altered realities and self-deception. “There is a willing suspension of disbelief,” says Ashton. “People want to be fooled, they want to be taken out of themselves and enter another world. A lot of my work is about taking myself out of myself. I want people to walk away from my work with a certain amazement with the illusion.”

Ashton gained a First Class degree in Fine Art from Newcastle University and a Masters from the Slade School of Fine Art (2006-2008). Selected exhibitions and residencies: The House of Voltaire 2010 in collaboration with Princess Julia (in support of Studio Voltaire); The Bloomsbury Festival 2010; solo exhibition at Simon Oldfield Gallery 2009; The Brain Unravelled, London, 2009 (alongside Antony Gormley); artist-in-residence at the 2008 Slade Summer School; Ascension, London, 2008 and current artist-in-residence at The Bloomsbury Studio, which is run and subsidised by Simon Oldfield Gallery.

9 Henrietta Street
Covent Garden
London WC2E 8PW

Tel: +44 (0)7970 719962
art@simonoldfield.com

Gallery hours:
Tuesday-Friday 10am-6pm
Open until 8pm on Thursdays
Or by appointment

http://simonoldfield.com/

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Ben Ashton: The 21st Century Genius

by PClarence 05.02.11 12:02

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A new solo show by Ben Ashton at Simon Oldfield is the shining highlight of 2011 London shows. I was lucky enough to be invited to one of the hot ticket previews at Simon Oldfield. This show opens on 9 Feb to the public and will set a new benchmark for cool independent galleries. Simon Oldfield knows how to really put on a show and I immediately bought 2 works from Ben Ashton's new study of the world that surrounds him. His paintings are exquisite, gem like studies of life in the studio and the people close to him. He also gives us clever structures and uses lenses and viewing platforms to provide 3D perspectives. Ben Ashton is truly a 21st Century Genius.

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2

 

At Home With The Ashtons - 5 Stars

by PClarence 05.02.11 12:22

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Went to the pre-preview last night of Ben Ashton's new show and loved it. Very different to anything else we have seen of late. We see Ben's life close up, in the raw, and his super-hip coterie, wrought in these unique, Currin-like paintings. Preview 9 Feb

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