Past Exhibitions
Keeping Up Appearances is a large-scale installation series comprised of giant red crochet doilies that take on a life of their own by crawling up gallery walls and dwarfing the viewer. Instead of existing as dainty white furniture coverings, these carefully arranged red forms unsettle and demand attention, hinting at underlying tensions in the intimacy of home life. Each iteration of this installation series is conceived on-site, with doily patterns and sizes selected as the installation takes shape. By recreating the private ritual of interior domestic decoration in public and using the slow, deliberate process of crochet, the series offers a tactile remedy to a world increasingly shaped by virtual connections, planned obsolescence, and instant gratification.
Ashley V. Blalock was born and raised in San Diego, CA. She holds an MFA in Sculpture from the San Francisco Art Institute, an MA in Art History from the University of California, and a BA in Painting and Printmaking from San Diego State University. She was a resident at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Wassaic Project, and Vermont Studio Center, and a visiting teacher at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts. Her large-scale installations have appeared at Franconia Sculpture Park, Hunter Museum of American Art, Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Nevada Museum of Art, Lux Art Institute, Huntington Beach Art Center, Oceanside Museum of Art, and the Whatcom Museum. Her site-responsive works have been placed in and around historic homes such as Edith Wharton’s home (The Mount), Highfield Hall, and the Heritage Museum and Gardens. Published reviews of her work include the Boston Globe, Huffington Post, and Art and Cake, and her work has been featured in FiberArt Now, The Bulletin of the International Organization of Lace, Vogue Knitting Crochet, and Interweave Crochet Magazine. Ashley V. Blalock lives and works in Southern California.
