Scott Ashley - Surrealism & Conceptualism

Scott Ashley makes his conceptualism personal the some of the quixotic spirit of Rene Magritte, the late Belgian surrealist, may be found in conceptual artist Scott Ashley, whose work is exhibited at the aldo Castillo gallery.

The Apology, for instance, a found object art piece depicting an improbably hinged knife, not only reflects Magritte’s distortion of reality but also his sense of humor. Similarly, Ashley’s image, Aldo Castillo says, also humorously stands for the times when a person might like to kill someone but wisely holds back for a multitude of reasons. The work is somewhat characteristic of the visual play Ashley, likes to infuse into his art. “The knife is many things: a weapon, a domestic tool and can even be seen as a phallic symbol,” he suggests. “I feel the knife is a visual representation of an aggressive act, sexual or otherwise. And that, after the incident, one would want to retract: an apology for transgressions on another person.

Scott Ashley was born in Boston and raised in Seattle, WA. Scott Ashley gained notoriety for his appropriation of everyday objects. He is included in the permanent collection of the Racine Art Museum and RAM’s Charles A. Wustum Museum of Fine Arts located in Racine, Wisconsin. With BFA degrees in printmaking and sculpture from University of Washington and an MFA in New Art Forms from Pratt institute in New York.