"My work is an exploration of decomposition and recomposition, probing the fragments and leavings of humanity in coincidence with the natural world. The delicate structure of a mouse skeleton is the same as a forgotten bicycle dripping rust back into the earth. As an avid naturalist and explorer, I pursue the play between objects and materials left behind, looking for the moment the lines are blurred between organic and inorganic. A fascination with skeleton and frame propels the imagery of discarded human objects undergoing entropy, and speaks of the delicacy of the ecosystem trying to swallow the litter of mankind.

 

An obsessive nature is revealed through my work, and in harmony with the speed in which a steel frame, left alone, is taken back to its elements, my processes seek to emulate that slowness. Using a pinhole camera is vital to this shift in speed. An exposure can last between seconds and hours, redefining the now instant nature of photography. Using the environment as stabilization for the camera lowers the vantage point and heightens the tension between the constructed and native elements."

 

- Ashley Pridmore

 

 

 

"With this body of work, Ashley Pridmore has created a fully-formed fantasy world, where the god of time is slowly reclaiming the works of man. Her barren, dreamlike photographs are hard to recognize as contemporary images, but seem rather documents from a post-apocalyptic world. Her sculptures and assemblages are surreal, masterfully crafted, organic curiosities - fetish objects from a cult of decay. Together, they form an immersive environment from wax barnacles and papier-mâché bones, feathers, bottles and bell jars, fantastical creatures in a melancholy landscape that stand testament to the cyclical nature of life and death."

 

Bradley Sumrall

Chief Curator

Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans