ASHLEY AMERY
the end of all our exploring
Ashley Amery the end of all our exploring Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery
2023
Transcendent Waterfall (detail), 2023
gouache on 300gsm Fabriano paper
187 x 147 cm
Entanglement, 2022
gouache on 640 gsm Fabriano paper 89 x 140
‘We shall not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring. Will be to arrive where we started. And know the place for the first time.’ - T S Eliot, ‘Little Gidding’
On this journey of perpetual discovery, we travel through what we know, and what we think we have known, to ourselves.
Painting from her garden studio in East London, Ashley Amery’s works grow from her own sense of this adventure. Her work borrows its imagery from the natural world to speak to Eliot’s notion of exploration, and her own self-interrogative processes as an artist.
Tendrils of sea kelp and sea anemone form across the page as Amery builds layers of gouache, playing with the tension between translucent washes, and opaque surfaces. The graphic lines of the waterfall capture movement in stillness.
Thick, opaque brush strokes are balanced against the precision and clarity of the other plants that inhabit her organic scenes. Tempering the vegetal with the abstract, her underwater scenes and lush landscapes create visual echoes with Matisse’s cutouts. Otherworldly in feel, there is a peace and tranquillity in these imaginative scapes. Central to Amery’s work is the image of the waterfall. It is a visual motif that embodies the spiritual. From Greek mythology to Romantic poetry, the waterfall has long been a source of awe and wonderment and it finds poignance again in the works of San-Diego born, London-based artist Ashley Amery. In Hinduism, the sacred river Ganga falls down from heaven as a waterfall, and from the head of Shiva it reaches earth again as a waterfall.
The waterfall serves as a bathing place for gods and celestial beings, and it holds healing and purifying powers. In the Shinto faith in Japan, the practice of ‘misogi’ or water cleansing involves standing under a waterfall as a way to purify the soul. Shinto ‘kami’ or spirits are seen to reside in these waterfalls. The image of the waterfall is central to Edo period (1615-1868) ink paintings.
Immovable and constant, yet ever-changing and freeflowing, the waterfall suggests what the artist might seek to be. With a meditative appreciation of the waterfall’s spirituality, Amery is constantly searching for clarity, for enlightenment in her work, for the chance to explore what we have known, and know it again anew.
Zara Shepherd-BrierleySummer Waterfall, 2023
gouache on 300gsm Fabriano paper
93 x 147 cm
Transcendent Waterfall (details), 2023
gouache on 300gsm Fabriano paper
187 x 147 cm
73 x 58 in
Ashley Amery
Two Streams (detail), 2023
gouache on 300 gsm Fabriano paper
140 x 140 cm
55 x 55 in
'Ever changing, the waterfall is a source of excitement and inspiration for all who come across its majestic power.'
Ashley Amery
Desert Throughway, 2023
gouache on 640gsm Fabriano paper
56 x 76 cm
22 x 30 in
Pink Waterfall (detail), 2023
gouache on 300gsm Fabriano paper
161 x 140 cm 63
‘the continual change of the Matter, the perpetual sameness of the Form’
Samuel Taylor Colerdidge, Moss Fall, Keswick, 1802
ASHLEY AMERY
Amery studied at Pepperdine University, California and Camberwell College of Arts, London. She has exhibited internationally at art fairs and institutions including the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, London. Her work is held in the UAL Art Collection, the University of the Arts, London.
The exhibition runs at the Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery, 2a Conway Street, London W1T 6BA, from 7 to 28 October, 2023.
info@rebeccahossack.com