ARTISTS STATEMENT

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Ashley P Jennings MA BA (hons) HNdip

Artist /Illustrator / Poet 

There is occasionally a splatter of colour, which is beautiful and serene. It may

be the thing that brings us peace or sanity.

We face many things in these days that overshadow our lives like a growing

storm.

It is light, life and beauty that interest me more than anything when creating

an image or writing a poem. And yet I acknowledge the need to see the dark tones.

In my world I want colour. I need light and I want to create the beautiful

thing.

A sunset, A moonlit night, a Rose.

I want to tell of the hope that I hold in my heart.

Fixing my gaze on the point of light.

“When I have been going through hell I have kept going”.

I make and look for the thing that delights. That brings hope, or enhances my own heart.

The experience of pain emotional and physical is why I make and write in theway I do.

“I choose not to project the twisted decaying debris of life. 

I choose the rose. 

Ashley Jennings Edited 2023

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I was born an artist. 

Born the second son to hard working parents. 

I was given a pencil and paper has soon has I could hold it. I was in my teens when I began painting in oils. and later watercolour. I sold my first painting around thirteen. That was the beginning of my painting career. 

Since leaving school I have worked across a wide variety of visual art forms. Including, fine art and illustration. Over the last two years I have changed direction in my thinking and the kind of work I am interested in making. My interest in the artist book has become part of my practice and am very much exploring this. I am working on an illustrated story at the moment ‘the maid of the sea’ and looking back to William Morris who has been a source of inspiration and the work of Kelmscot Press. The poem is about love transformation and loss. And how a creature from the sea visits and captures her mate.

I have also completed my first Dummy book of an illustrated poem.

The Old Whale and the Deep Blue Sea

In August 2020 it was the halfway point of the part time Masters in Authorial and Illustration Practice in Falmouth University. I marked the point by painting a Nocturne. ‘The Deep Blue Sea’. After the exhibition I kept visiting the painting asking the question when the setting was, present or past? 

Contemporary or 19th century. 

It turned out to be 19 century whaling.... I then began to write a poem about a whale hunt told from the Old Sperm whales perspective. And this lead me into writing a further dissertation about whaling and the industrial revolution and how the age of romanticism reacted and rebelled against mass production, use of human labour and called for social reform. I am deeply interested in the Romanticism and how its artists changed British society.

My Work today.

I still paint subjects that I love. The natural world is fascinating to me. In particular I am interested in the sea. Whales keep turning up in my themes, weather in ink, paint, clay and the stories I want to tell. 

And I am very happy painting old ships harbours and nocturnes rivers hills and valleys. I don’t turn work out on a conveyor belt, but these subjects have been resurgent. I see myself very much has an Authorial illustrator im Interested in poetry, words, and text meeting together with imagery.

What  is Art :-

A   definitions   of   what   an   artist  does

Painting,  Drawing,  Illustration,    Fine Art, Pottery,  Sculpture,  Printmaking,  Lettering, Sign Writing,  Architecture,     

Interiors, Ceramics, Fashion, Landscape design,

Performing art, Theatrical art,  Conceptual, Photography, Product Design, Textiles, Pattern

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Everything  you  like  or  want  that  isn't natural,  starts in  the  mind  of  an  artist.   So now  tell  me,  art  isn't  a  proper  job.

Even   in   Nature   I  see   the   hand   of  a master Creator. 

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Albatross Gallery Porthleven

Gallery and Exhibition

Masters Show 2022

Albotross Gallery 2022

Tate St Ives Staff Exhibition 2018​

Cooper Gallery (Dundee)

Artery Gallery Crieff  St Andrews

JKW Gallery Commrie Perthshire

Aiton Gallery Crieff

Kirriemuir ART 24/7 Dundee

Meffen Gallery Winter exhibitions

Generator Project Members Exhibition Dundee

DCA

Frigate HMS Unicorn Print exhibition (Dundee)

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Other Exhibitions

Milk Barn Onging Prints

Mounts Bay Restaurant Ongoing Prints

Private Collections

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Papers and Publications

Dissertation 2014 BA DoJ  The Pre-Raphaelite Brothers and the allure of femininity

Dissertation 2022 Falmouth Tales of Love and loss

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Art Spot Article:- Sam Lock The memory of what comes next ( A Personal reflection)

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