ABOUT
Ashley Griffiths studied an HNC in Contemporary Art Practice at the City of Glasgow College before attending the Glasgow School of Art to study a BA Honours in Painting in Printmaking. She finished her studies in May 2024 and is currently exhibiting, Inner Landscapes, at the Degree Show in Stow College from 31st May until the 9th of June.
On writing her dissertation, 'Art Education, an untapped resource?' she investigated whether emotional benefits relating to art and creativity can be used to better support young people in Secondary Schools in Scotland. The theme of exploration of emotions through a creative practice filters through to her own art practice and is at the core of her investigations.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Ashley Griffiths is a painter creating layered works of abstraction in bold colour palettes on canvas or MDF board. The work intertwines multiple layers of shapes to create self-initiated composites and colours, boundless translucency and intriguing depth. The work is structed around a selection of shapes inspired from initial sketches focusing on simplified tonality in colour, particularly focusing on circles, triangles, squares and polygons. On ascertaining said structure, Griffiths allows the work to develop through intuition, constantly balancing colour, shape and composition until a dimension appears. There is no premeditated pictorial outcome but rather a fixation on the process and an excitable intrigue into what will unfold. The preoccupation process is routed in a belief of cathartic expression and an investigation into harnessing untapped emotions further facilitated through music. Griffiths views her work as world building, creating what she refers to as Inner Landscapes aiming to shine a light on a world beneath surface level, inspired by memory, emotion and musicality. The imagery aims to reflect my ideology that our inner emotional world is a continuous layering of memories and emotions, constantly shifting and impacted by the existing layers.