Edwina Ashton

Renowned for her interest in animals, zoology and our perceptions of nature, Edwina Ashton uses creatures to explore awkward human sensations, social relationships and language.

Ashton’s practice includes animation, performance, drawing and installation. Her hand-drawn, animated films hinge on the mismatch between our intentions and reality, offering narratives that draw on painful observations of everyday behaviour and individual foibles; “I’m interested in constructing characters and objects from the flimsiest of means and setting emotions up against ridiculous scenarios.”

Writing about Ashton’s films Sally O’Reilly observed, “The…absurdist dialogue groans with bad gags and twisting contradictions as the human and animal worlds writhe uncomfortably together.” This combination of slapstick and pathos is similarly a leitmotif of Ashton’s exhibitions and performances; scraps and debris suggestive of backstage at an amateur pantomime – exuberant re-purposing – audiences brushing up against odd and beguiling situations.

1985 – 1989  Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge University
1990 – 1992  Camberwell College of Arts, London
1993 – 1996 Goldsmiths College of Arts, London

Solo Exhibitions / Screenings / Performances

In 2022 Edwina Ashton was commissioned to make a ceramic edition entitled We’ve Come For The Kitten,for Camden Art Centre.

2019
Why We Got So Fat, Tintype, London
2016
In the Winter Hours, Whitechapel Gallery, London
2015
Burns Unit Commission, Bristol Royal Infirmary, Bristol
2014
Kittens in a basket Gavle KonstCentrum, Gavle, Sweden
Kitten Studio – Photographs Spike Island Open, Bristol Kitten Triage and Planning Office Grundy Museum Blackpool Kitten Triage SWA Glasgow International
2013
Midnight at the Watering Hole, WORKS|PROJECTS, Bristol 2012
Conference Interruption Tate Tanks, Tate Modern, London
Interval, LUPA 9, London
2011
Icons of Puppet Animation, Barbican Art Gallery, London
Out with the Hammers, Phoenix Gallery, Exeter, UK
2010
No more furniture, WORKS|PROJECTS, Bristol
2009
Gallery Termite, with Jordan Mckenzie and Aaron Williamson,
Studio 1.1, London
2008
MAM Screening, Mori Museum, Tokyo
2006
The Delicious Cutlet, The Reading Room, Camden Arts Centre, London Dr Voss talks about Moths, Camden Arts Centre, London
2005
At Last the Postman, Peer, London
2004
Videoworks, MoCA, Miami
2003
Recognition, Arnolfini, Bristol
2003
Edwina Ashton Video Mjellby Kunstgaard Art Centre,
Halmstaad, Sweden
Excusez Moi, Hammersidi, London
2001
We Speak Your Language, Artlab, Imperial College, London

Selected Group Exhibitions
Essex Road IV Tintype, London
2016-17
Making Nature Wellcome Institute, London
2014
Puppet Show Gavle Konst Centrum, Gavle, Sweden
Puppet Show, Grundy Museum, Blackpool
2013
Animal Gaze Returned Institute of Arts Sheffield
Puppet Show, Eastside Projects, Birmingham
Fiction Show, Cock n Bull Gallery, London
2012
With An Apple I Will Astonish, Large Glass, London
No Now! Space Station 65, London
Swarms of Black Flies Make the Roses Purple, IMT Gallery, London
In the Belly of the Whale (Act III), Monothermosa Fray Martinez, Spain
Latitude Festival, Suffolk
2011
HausGeister, Schifferstasse 62, Frankfurt
The Animal Gaze Returned, London Metropolitan University, London
Giving Soul, Screening WOMAD Festival, Wiltshire
Seven Sites, Manchester
More Soup and Tart, Barbican Art Gallery, London
SHOW, Jerwood Space, London
2010
Rude Britannia, Tate Britain, London
Shudder, Animate Projects/The Drawing Room, London
2009
Independent State, Foreground, Somerset Animal Prospects, Georg Kolbe Museum, Berlin
DRAWING TALES, Citric, Brescia
From the Sublime to the Ridiculous, Teverina Fine Art, Athens
CREATURES, Project Space, London
Pictopia, Pictoplasma, Haus der Kunst, Berlin
2008
Machinic Alliances, Danielle Arnaud Contemporary Art, London
On the edge of love, Souterrain, Berlin
Things that go bump in the night, Café Gallery Projects, London
Double Standards, Space Kobo & Tomo & Tokyo Wonder Site, Tokyo
2007
per Forma, Temple Bar Gallery, Dublin
Real Writers Residency Programme, g39, Cardiff
2006
Transiti 1 British School at Rome
Beauty Spot, Whitstable Biennale, Whitstable
Small Mischiefs, Pump House Gallery, London
2005
Animal Nature, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh
Morpho Eugenia, The State Gallery of Contemporary Art, San Marino
Eccentric Spaces, Frith Street Gallery, London
2004
Kingdom, Market Gallery, Glasgow
Pictoplasma Sparwasser HQ, Berlin
Plaza Suite (Laden Fuer Nichts, Lepzig), Union Projects, London
Moon Absinthe, nn Foundation for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam
Edwina Ashton & Zhao Liang, DʼAmelio Terras, New York
2003
Drawing Show, Mjellby Kunstgaard Art Centre, Halmstaad, Sweden
ArtKliasma Festival, Kliasma Pensionnat, The Bay of Joy, Moscow
Artlab Cinema, Deptford; Coventry; Newcastle; Bologna
2002
Videoidyll, Staatesbank Mitte, Berlin
2001
Show One, Islington Mill, Manchester
Crylawn, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Los Angeles

Fellowships
Wingate Scholarship, AIR Cocheme Expedition Artist
British School at Rome, Rome 2006
Byam Shaw School of Art, London 2009 – 2010
Barnes Wallis Moth Expedition,Bengkulu, Sumatra, 1993

Private Collections: USA, UK, Holland, Switzerland, Japan, Germany, France, Russia

LINKS
https://www.whitechapelgallery.org/exhibitions/childrens-commission-edwina-ashton/

http://animateprojectsarchive.org/films/by_date/2010/mr_panz

http://animateprojectsarchive.org/films/by_date/2011/in_a_rose