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Ben Ashton - October 2009
In a former monumental stonemasons at 17 Osborn Street, Simon Oldfield presented Ben Ashton’s first solo show. This was his second exhibition of 2009, the first of which, ‘The Brain Unravelled’ saw him exhibit alongside Antony Gormley.
Having gained a First Class degree in Fine Art from Newcastle University, Ashton then went on study for his Masters at Slade School of Fine Art in London. Throughout his career Ashton has concentrated on the recurring themes of performance and voyeurism, by repeatedly putting himself at the heart of his work, he becomes both the subject and the object, the character and the painter, the artist and his model.
In this exhibition, Ashton refined and progressed these ideas, playing with notions of spatial awareness and historical context to encourage us to dig beneath the surface and discover the unexpected narratives that nestle beneath.
Ashton uses historical works as his starting point and then literally puts himself in the picture: in order to produce a work, he will first take a photo of himself in character and then paint or create an installation from the photograph. Each stage is a further layer of artifice, a conscious evolution that seeks to capture the intricacy of illusion and collusion: the artist is inside his paintings and yet he is outside them too, as both critic and creator.
“The focus of this series started with an interest in celebrity,” explains Ashton. “I would often walk around the National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery for inspiration and I realised that the notion of celebrity hasn't really changed that much through the centuries: there is always a sense of what this person wanted to portray about themselves, about the pose they wanted to strike.”
By taking inspiration from real-life historical portraiture, Ashton seeks to subvert the concept of celebrity and fame by distorting both the sitter and the artist’s original intent. His work is a performance, an exercise in theatrics that transforms the familiar with an innovative, contemporary twist and shoots an arrow through our preconceptions. Ashton plays with the fakery at the heart of celebrity portraiture and encourages us to peep behind the curtain in order to see what is actually going on. In Gloriana (2009), the intricately-rendered Elizabethan ruff is actually constructed from polythene shopping bags. In Joe (2009), the historical pose is contrasted sharply by the modern-day zip-up tracksuit top.
“I'm playing someone else, but I'm always inherently there myself,” says Ashton. “What I am doing here is creating a myth and yet no-one ultimately knows who I really am, which is beautiful in a way.”
Aged only 26, Ashton is cutting his own path; in an ever evolving art scene Ashton successfully stands out from his peers. Through taking his audience on a journey of illusion and disbelief he himself becomes the discovery.
A limited edition print (of 50) has been produced to celebrate Ashton’s first solo show and is available at the price of £245.
