Ashley Amery: the end of all our exploring

About

In her new body of work, Amery creates large-scale gouache paintings of lush, imaginary landscapes, dense with colour, light, flowing water, and botanical forms.

From their origins, the works are explorations through unknown, and unpeopled, territories — tropical, subtropical, subaqueous, celestial. The image of the waterfall, in particular, holds symbolic weight for the artist. ‘Ever changing, the waterfall is a source of excitement and inspiration for all who come across its majestic power,’ says Amery. Her works capture the essence of this drama that unfolds in the natural world.

Amery has embraced the technical challenges of working in gouache on a large scale. It is a bravura display. Influenced by Japanese Edo-period ink paintings of waterfalls, Amery’s practice draws upon line and pattern-making as a means of investigation and meditation. Working on paper, Amery creates a dialogue between gestural, translucent washes and opaque surfaces. Allowing the tendrils of gouache layers to build, Amery witnesses her works grow before her with an organicism befitting her subject matter.

In all Amery’s work, there is a balance between the meticulous course of planned ideas and the serendipitous discovery of where a work wants to take her; small details accumulate, pattern and form weave together to create a rich visual ecosystem.

Amery studied at Pepperdine University, California and Camberwell College of Arts, London. She has exhibited internationally at art fairs and institutions including the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, London. Her work is held in the UAL Art Collection, the University of the Arts, London.