Meet The Artist

Ashley Blanton is an Asheville, North Carolina-based artist who creates mixed media works on paper that depict psychological landscapes and the liminal spaces between internal and external experiences.

Ashley Blanton is inspired by natural cycles — growth and decay, descent and emergence, isolation and connection — and how these processes are mirrored within transformative human experiences of trauma, loss, grief, and healing.

Ashley Blanton holds a Bachelor of Art in Studio Art from the College of Santa Fe and a Master of Professional Studies in Art Therapy and Creativity Development from Pratt Institute.

Artist Statement Of Ashley Blanton

My artwork reimagines the connection between body and environment by conjuring a speculative future that exists in the radioactive afterglow of climate catastrophe. I utilize watercolor, gouache, collage, and transfer techniques to create layered works on paper that are evocative of emotional residue and visceral felt senses.

The female forms depicted within these images are conduits and beacons who absorb, process and transmit the energetic residue of the interconnected ecosystems of which they are a part. Situated within biomes of fungi, microbes, and roots, the bodies are transformed into networks of neurons, energy, and veins.

The images are an attempt to process grief around the climate crisis, to fend off dystopian despair with visions of emergent connection, sensitivity, and empathy.

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