Photo Credit: Pratyush Swarup

Photo Credit: Chris George, SAIC Magazine.

Scottish-born, Chicago-based artist Claire Ashley mines the language of painterly abstraction, monumental sculpture, slapstick humor, and Pop Art to transform ordinary materials into inflatable painted sculptures.

Ashley received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago, IL), and her BFA from Gray’s School of Art (Aberdeen, Scotland). Currently, she teaches at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the Department of Contemporary Practices, and the Department of Painting and Drawing. She has an old husband, three young adult offspring, two dogs and three cats.

Ashley’s work investigates inflatables as painting, sculpture, installation and performance costume. These works have been exhibited nationally and internationally in galleries, museums, and site-specific installations, performances and collaborations.

She has been featured on blogs such as VICE, Hyperallergic, and Artforum, and in magazines such as Sculpture Magazine, Art Papers, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, Time Out Chicago, Yorkshire Post, and Condé Nast Traveller (European).

Her work has been shown at venues such as The Henry Moore Institute (Leeds, England), Art Basel (Kassel, Germany), Rockelmann & Partner (Berlin, Germany), The Balloon Museum Paris, Grande Halle de la Villette (Paris, France), The Tetley Center for Contemporary Art, (Leeds, England), Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art (Bentonville, AR), Laumeier Sculpture Park (St. Louis, MO), Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville (FL), PLAY/GROUND (Medina, NY), Boston Children’s Museum (Boston, MA), 808 Gallery, Boston University (Boston, MA), University of Buffalo Galleries (Buffalo, NY), Southern Georgia University Gallery (Savannah, GA), Elmhurst Art Museum (Elmhurst, IL), Illinois State University Galleries (Normal, IL), Anya Tish Gallery (Houston, TX), CAFKA Biennial of Art in Public Places (Kitchener, ON, CAN), Indiana State Museum (Indianapolis, IN), Cleve Carney Gallery, College of Du Page (Glen Ellyn, IL), Milwaukee Art Museum (Milwaukee, IL), Young World (Detroit, MI), DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum (Lincoln, MA), Helen Day Art Center, (Stowe, VT), Disjecta Contemporary Art Center (Portland, OR), Columbus College of Art and Design, (Columbus, OH), ICEBOX Crane Arts (Philadelphia, PA), Bedford Gallery, (Walnut Creek, CA), Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center, (Austin, TX), Art Gallery of Mississauga, (Mississauga, ON, CAN), The Chicago Cultural Center (Chicago, IL) and the Museum of Contemporary Art, (Chicago, IL). Additionally, her work has been exhibited in Scotland at: The House for an Art Lover (Glasgow, Scotland), gallerA1 (Edinburgh, Scotland), and The Highland Institute for Contemporary Art (Inverness, Scotland).