Ashley Normal

MFA ’15 Fine Arts Low-Residency

The truth is often stranger than fiction. Through found, altered, and traditional media I draw attention to what is already present in our culture. Using repetitive mark-making and color the gaze is turned towards the issues surrounding us today: communication, identity, societal norms and taboos, privilege, class, whiteness, and all the gray areas in between. I connect with the Japanese ceramic method and philosophy Kintsugi, which treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, making it more beautiful for having been broken. I am drawn to the relationship between attraction and repulsion, dark humor, and the surreal. I do this work to understand myself and what drives me as a caregiver and educator. To understand that by fixing something you must also deem it as broken. What is the evidence we leave behind? What is normal?



Ashley Normal received a MFA from MassArt in 2015, and a BFA in Art Education in 2007. Her work was exhibited at the Biennial 2020 at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockland, ME and the 85th Regional Exhibition at the Fitchburg Art Museum, Fitchburg, MA in 2021. When she is not making work she can be found teaching, walking, practicing yoga, and enjoying time with her family in Southern New Hampshire.

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