Dr Kelsey Ashe is an Australian artist, author, and researcher whose interdisciplinary practice traverses eco-surrealism, mythology, ritual, and environmental humanities to explore the hidden relationships between landscape, culture, and the sublime. Working across printmaking, writing, film, and performance, her work emerges from sustained encounters with place, drawing together ecological observation, history, symbolism, and poetic imagination.
Ashe holds a Doctorate of Philosophy (Art) and has developed an internationally recognised practice-led research methodology that embraces intuition, embodiment, symbolism, and contemplative inquiry as legitimate forms of knowledge. Her practice often occupies the fertile territory between art and scholarship, where observation meets imagination and landscape becomes both subject and collaborator.
Drawing from traditions as diverse as eco-poetics, feminist surrealism, folklore, mysticism, and environmental philosophy, Ashe creates works that invite reflection on humanity's relationship with the more-than-human world. Through slow, immersive processes of studio making and field research, she seeks not simply to represent landscape, but to reveal its capacity for wonder, enchantment, and transformation.
Her artworks are held in public and private collections throughout Australia, including St John of God Health Care, the City of Fremantle, the City of Melville, the City of Bunbury, the City of Joondalup, John Curtin Gallery, the Holmes à Court Collection, the Horn Collection of Western Australian Art, and Apparatus Art & Culture. She is represented by Linton & Kay Galleries.
Dr Catriona McAra, Curator at Leeds Arts University (UK), describes Ashe as “something of a sorceress, conjuring within the realm of the international feminist-surrealist revival. Her practice has a powerful, consciousness-raising ability; its tendrils are far-reaching, yet the work remains deeply rooted in an antipodean, postcolonial context.” (2021)
ARTIST STATEMENT:
"I am fascinated by the mysteries of life on both a cosmic and human scale. Through printmaking, writing, and field-based research, I explore the meeting place of landscape, ecology, mythology, and imagination. Moonlit rivers, southern celestial skies, forgotten stories, ritual practices, and the hidden energies of place become starting points for works that move between observation and dream. My practice follows wonder wherever it leads, seeking traces of the numinous within the living world.
I enjoy making my own inks from botanical and earth pigments, and find the alchemy of using various resins, waxes and mordants deeply enriching and also more sustainable environmentally.
Most often I am drawn to depicting what is known in Japanese Aesthetic Philosophy as 'yugen' the quiet deep calm mystery of the universe." (Dr. Kelsey Ashe, 2026)
SELECT EXHIBITIONS:
2026 Hadleys Art Prize Finalist, Hadleys Orient Hotel, Hobart, Tasmania.
2026 A call and response across the Ocean, Perth Festival, John Curtin Gallery, Perth, WA.
2025 The Foreign Within, Wallace at With Gallery, Perth, WA.
2025 Walyalup Fremantle Print Award Finalist, Fremantle Arts Centre, WA.
2024-2025 The Deep Green Sea, Bunbury Regional Art Gallery WA.
2024 Resurface: Gothic Tales from the Indian Ocean, IOTA24; Codes in Parallel, Alcoa Mandurah Art Gallery, WA.
2024 Paper Trails; Singapore Art Week Sculpture 2502, National Arts Council, SINGAPORE.
2024 York Botanic Art Prize Finalist, York, WA.
2023 EPIC WORKS: From the Horn Collection of WA Art, Bunbury Regional Art Gallery WA.
2022 Cartography of Care, Spilt Milk Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK.
2022 Wam Wardanup Strangers on the Shore, Wardan 2022 Perth FestivalGallery Holmes a Court, WA.
2022 Divergent Terrain, Artsource Fremantle WA.
2021 Cladogram International Biennale, Katonah Museum of Art, New York, USA.
2021 Melville Art Award Finalist, Wireless Hill Museum, WA.
2021 IAP Joondalup Invitation Art Award Finalist, Whitford City, WA.
2021 Aura IOTA21 Indian Ocean Craft Triennial, Kidogo Art House, WA.
2021 Archetype Solo Exhibition Moores Building, WA.
2020 Tracing the Swan, Gallery Holmes a Court, Vasse Felix, WA.
2020 Electric Muses Film Festival, Edinburgh, Scotland UK.
2020 Imaginary Territories, PS Art Space, Fremantle, WA.
2021 Margins Barrett Art Centre, New York, Curated by Anthony Elms, Chief Curator Institute of Contemporary Art. USA.
2020 Gesture and Motion, Site:Brooklyn Gallery, Curated by Margaret Carrigan, Art Institute of Chicago. New York, USA.
2020 31 Women (A remake of Peggy Guggenheim’s Exhibition from 1943 of 31 International Surrealist women). Curated by Dr. Catriona McAra. Sedona Arts Centre, USA.
2020 The Debutante (Launch), Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK.
2019 UnderCurrent 2019, Fremantle Biennale, WA Maritime Museum, WA.
2018 Dark Swan: Contemporary Tales of the Gothic Antipodes, PS Art Space WA.
2018 Imaginary Aesthetic Territories. John Curtin Gallery, WA.
COLLECTIONS:
St. John of God Hospital
City of Melville Art Collection
Holmes à Court Art Collection
Apparatus Art & Culture Collection
City of Fremantle Art Collection
Horn Collection of Contemporary West Australian Art
City of Joondalup Art Collection
City of Bunbury Art Collection
City of Burnie Art Collection Tasmania
John Curtin Gallery (JCG) University Collection
Ideé Fixe (Vasse Felix)