Ashley Garrett
Ashley Garrett: Ambrosia
June 10- August 6, 2023
“In these paintings I am offering spaces for healing, restoration, and growth. By slowing down, observing the land that holds us, and prioritizing its care, we can recognize that by attending to the land, we are taking care of ourselves. Connecting to the bigness of nature and how it draws a feeling of settling and coming home.”
We are thrilled to present Ambrosia, Ashley Garrett’s second solo exhibition with the gallery. Living and working among the natural riches of the environment in Upstate NY, Garrett’s work is directly connected to the surrounding landscape and her daily practice of meditating in nature. Presented here are a family of paintings created over the course of three years through changing seasons and undulating times.
The artist’s close observation of land and all that lives and grows in it, real, remembered, and imagined, becomes swirling forms, capricious brushstrokes, and passages of brilliant light. Garrett’s palette is unfettered and rich. Exuding variant forces of nature, she layers densely and brushes lightly, she discovers quickly and labors intensely.
Shifting between a range of scales, Garrett masterfully meets literal edges and visually surpasses this finitude. Her paintings are not limited by their frame, but imply infinite continuation. Her facile transitions between closeness and expansiveness are remarkable; detail is not rendered but suggested through cohered brushwork, and spaciousness is achieved through visual openings that arrive because of their proximity to density.
“Spending time in nature, I felt how moving water and air mirrors the flow of internal processes like breathing, dreaming, and thinking. Where do these feelings, the strength of these energetic currents go, where are they met by nature’s pull?”
There is a reverence in Garrett’s practice that effuses joy, evident in her exuberant works. The consciousness and transcendence that she discovers in the woods and before a canvas is devotional, even spiritual. Her works are offerings; they are portals for us to enter and move freely within. They are Ambrosia.
June 10- August 6, 2023
“In these paintings I am offering spaces for healing, restoration, and growth. By slowing down, observing the land that holds us, and prioritizing its care, we can recognize that by attending to the land, we are taking care of ourselves. Connecting to the bigness of nature and how it draws a feeling of settling and coming home.”
We are thrilled to present Ambrosia, Ashley Garrett’s second solo exhibition with the gallery. Living and working among the natural riches of the environment in Upstate NY, Garrett’s work is directly connected to the surrounding landscape and her daily practice of meditating in nature. Presented here are a family of paintings created over the course of three years through changing seasons and undulating times.
The artist’s close observation of land and all that lives and grows in it, real, remembered, and imagined, becomes swirling forms, capricious brushstrokes, and passages of brilliant light. Garrett’s palette is unfettered and rich. Exuding variant forces of nature, she layers densely and brushes lightly, she discovers quickly and labors intensely.
Shifting between a range of scales, Garrett masterfully meets literal edges and visually surpasses this finitude. Her paintings are not limited by their frame, but imply infinite continuation. Her facile transitions between closeness and expansiveness are remarkable; detail is not rendered but suggested through cohered brushwork, and spaciousness is achieved through visual openings that arrive because of their proximity to density.
“Spending time in nature, I felt how moving water and air mirrors the flow of internal processes like breathing, dreaming, and thinking. Where do these feelings, the strength of these energetic currents go, where are they met by nature’s pull?”
There is a reverence in Garrett’s practice that effuses joy, evident in her exuberant works. The consciousness and transcendence that she discovers in the woods and before a canvas is devotional, even spiritual. Her works are offerings; they are portals for us to enter and move freely within. They are Ambrosia.
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SEPTEMBER