How much do I love Ashley Page’s sculptures? A LOT. I’ve been obsessed with shellac lately. It’s interesting (really, it is!) and while pondering ways to use leftover cuts of clear, amber, blue, and dark auburn that I had made, I discovered Ashley’s work at Cove Street Arts in Portland, Maine. Sunlight illuminated the gallery, making the skin of her sculptures glow. It was like the shellac baited me, reeled me in, and showed the genius way Ashley used this medium.
There is so much to appreciate in her sculpture, Duality: A Study of Our Differences (2021). I’ll leave it to you to decide if you prefer thinking her basket-like forms are fusing together or coming apart. Working craft techniques into modern art, her pieces reference past and present, history and innovation. The hand-made paper clads the wire skeleton like flesh. Colored and tinted by layers of shellac, her sculpture feels humanoid as it catches the afternoon light, with both light and dark halves casting the same color shadow.
FROM THE ARTIST:
“I utilize textile/fiber techniques such as netting, weaving, twining, coiling and crochet to create mixed media sculptural basket forms. These vessel forms are often a metaphor for the body, a vessel for a spirit, or act as a container for ephemera. With these vessels, I consider the universal cultural context of a basket and their functional place in human history, while using them as a vehicle for memory, portraiture, and storytelling. Stemming from a multi-racial home, I often think about how the fusion of different cultures, teachings, and ancestral memory has led me down a path of exploring how seemingly unrelated materials and techniques intertwine to create a new narrative. ”
– Ashley Page
Ashley’s work can be viewed February 1 – March 16, 2024 as part of the Next Gen show at Cove Street Arts in Portland, Maine
Discover more of Ashley Page’s work on her website: https://ashleypagestudio.com/
And on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ashleypage.studio/
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