2/26/2023 0 Comments Rust oleum spray paint“I use humor, acidic color, obnoxious scale, and absurd pop-culture references to challenge art’s historical precedence and current art world power dynamics.” Her goals are ambitious: she says that she’s trying to explode “the structural possibilities of abstract painting, expanding the kinetic possibilities of monumental sculpture, and enlivening the dialogue around contemporary art across class, gender, age, and education.” “I work within a deeply feminist critique of the contemporary art world,” she writes. But behind that whimsy, Ashley is making a serious statement, both artistically and politically. Claire Ashley (left) with Lynne Cooney, artistic director of the BU Art Galleries, at the opening reception for Ashley’s exhibition at the 808 Gallery October 14.Īnd there’s no debating that there’s something whimsical, even goofy, about some of the work. “I was interested in harnessing that kinetic energy in my work,” she says, adding that she was trying to embed a sense of humor as well. Dissatisfied with the flat surface or straight edge of painting, she turned to inflatables a decade ago while raising three small children who gravitated toward plush toys, balloons, cartoons, and bouncy houses. Trained as a painter, she’s always sought out a “more physical, sculptural, irreverent challenge to the traditions of the medium,” she says. “It is more about upsetting the applecart somehow in terms of how people understand painting or sculpture as potentially existing,” she told one interviewer. At the show’s opening reception last week, four College of Fine Arts students recruited from a movement class taught by Yo-EL Cassell, a CFA assistant professor of movement, rolled around inside some of the inflatables. “The street art and neon fashion palettes of the 1980s are ingrained in my history, and today I very much understand that urgent need for counterculture at this moment in space and time,” she says.Īshley says that her inflatables explore the intersection of painting, sculpture, installation, and performance art, and through them she’s trying to push the preconceived boundaries of those art forms. Ashley admits to having “a terrible obsession with neon pink and yellow.” Originally from Scotland, she says her palette was inspired not by the Haight Ashbury of the 1960s, but by the New Wave youth culture that gripped the United Kingdom during the 1980s. Many bear graffiti-like abstract designs painted in phosphorescent pink, orange, and yellow-green, giving the whole space a kind of psychedelic energy. The sculptures are on view through early December. The exhibition, with the seemingly indecipherable title (((CRZ.F.4NRS.AAK))), which when deciphered is Crazy Female Foreigners Alive and Kicking, is the work of Oak Park, Ill.–based artist Claire Ashley, who somewhat self-deprecatingly describes her art as “a Macy’s Day Parade–scaled SpongeBob meets a My Little Pony toy meets a bounce house or blimp meets an alien life form from another dimension.” (She’s an avowed Star Trek fan.) Some suggest animal shapes, with an eye, limb, or hand visible, while others look like a bouncy house that’s seen a bit too much wear and tear. The massive interior has been filled with bold, exuberant inflatables, some so large they touch the 17-plus-foot ceilings, others nestled together in piles, one atop the other. If you’ve passed the 808 Gallery during the past few weeks, chances are you’ve noticed passersby craning their necks for a better view inside.
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