artist’s Bio

Ashleigh Johns was born and raised in Upstate New York, spending her childhood and adolescent summers in Weekapaug, RI and coastal Maine as an adult. She received her AAS in Fine Art Studio Arts from the Fashion Institute of Technology, her BFA in Painting with a minor in Sculpture from Binghamton University, her Post-Baccalaureate degree in Art Education from Buffalo State College and her MFA in Visual Art from New Hampshire Institute of Art/New England College. She had the opportunity during her MFA to work with artists Brian Bishop, Gaby Collins-Fernandez, Ben Coonley, Patricia Miranda, Humberto Ramirez, Craig Stockwell, Jason Stopa, Julianne Swartz, and Jonathan VanDyke. She is an art educator of both foundational and advanced art courses at Albany High School in Albany, NY. 

Artist Statement

I create environments that correspond to the spaces I previously transposed two-dimensionally, shifting from paintings that reflect a sense of time, memory, and space to installations built of light, video, and sound. This transition from two-dimensional work to installation work stems from a desire formed out of necessity following the diagnosis of a demyelinating neurological disease. 

Similar to my paintings and two-dimensional pieces, light and color continue to command consideration in my installations. I introduced sound into my installation work as a mode of enveloping and grounding the viewer within the space. In taking control of that temporal space by playing with the suspension of time, I invoke the senses to immerse the viewer in a phenomenological experience beyond thought. 

Though loosely based on places from my own memory and experiences, my use of ambiguous sound and image allow for installations that are widely accessible to all. This also invites the viewer to apply their own experience of memory by appealing to the senses physically, constructing a metaphysical memory space from the physical installation.