Carly Ashdown works out of her studio in London. Carly is fascinated by what paint is capable of and its ability to seduce the viewer through illusion.
Carly has always been driven by a deep interest in understanding people and their lives. All of her childhood drawings focused on human interaction and emotions and this influence only grew stronger with the passing years. After completing an arts degree in Leeds in 2004 she focused herself on a new educational path studying and training in Counseling and Psychotherapy at the Tavistock Institute, London. Feeling a deep kinship to the questioning minds of philosopher Alan Watts and comedian Bill Hicks, Carly was inspired to explore her own relationship to life and particularly the idea of personal transformation. These explorations of how we have come to understand ourselves, the world and our place in it, have deeply influenced her art.
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Carly’s process involves entering into what can only be described as a dialogue with the painting. The intention is to search within each subject not for its likeness but for its unknown element in order to find an emotional connection that expresses and exposes something beyond the everyday. Carly is interested in exploring the interplay between the viewer and the painting, and the uniqueness of that relationship. In order to access what Carly names as ‘The deeply felt but unnamable’.
