Barbara Ash
Bristol, UK
I need to make art that talks about female experience; often playfully using toys and doll like forms as slightly ‘dark’ devices to talk about social issues. I explore ideas of power, and freedom, specifically from a feminist perspective, but now, given the current, increasingly authoritarian climate, there are more overt elements of protest and dissent arising in my practice.
I make hybrid prints/textile sculptures by collaging combinations of mixed media materials, juxtaposing sculpture and linocut prints, bringing together notions of hard and soft sculpture, and juggling ‘serious’ socio-political issues with a degree of absurdity/humour, often in an accessible ‘pleasant’ pastel coloured visual format with lots of lace.
Barbara Ash had a practice for 10 years in Bangalore and is now based/works on a boat near Bristol. She graduated with a Masters degree at the Royal College of Art, was awarded the Henry Moore Fellowship, several Artists Grants from Arts Council England, was a ‘Judges Favourite’ (Mary Allen; ex-Secretary-General of the Arts Council England) in the British Women Artist Annual and Tania Kovats selected her as the finalist for the Sculpture category in the Marshwood Arts Prize.
Photographs: by the artist