Photo credit: Candice Majors | candicemajors.com

As a socially engaged interdisciplinary artist, Ashley's work explores people's complex and nuanced lived experiences, mainly through the materiality and cultural significance of Black hair. She uses illustration, installation, and printmaking that reflects the tenderness, self-determination, and style of Black individuals and communities. Central to her practice is the idea of care - both personal, community, and collaborative. Through her artmaking and teaching practice, she aim to entrust people to reflect on and embrace their stories, experiences, and ideas and to demand the space and recognition they deserve. In all of her work, she seeks to affirm, reflect, and unearth the desires, dark shadows, and deep love and pleasure of Black people and to remind and encourage tenderness with ourselves and one another. Ashley has exhibited her work in New York City, the Washington Metropolitan area, and Prague, CZ, among other locations.