In her first exhibition at Alcaston Gallery, So when do you throw the flowers out?, Dena Ashbolt  uses photographic pigment prints, video and Raku Nu ceramic funerary urn drawings to explore time as evidenced by movement. The images depict flowers moving through life, gradually decaying whilst retaining their beauty. Dena Ashbolt describes this bitter-sweet notion of time passing:

Your radiant bunch of fresh flowers on the window sill or dining room table, give pleasure and happiness when fresh, but when do they cease to delight? At what point do their fading colours and drying petals confront you with notions of death; when do you throw them out?

The works in this exhibition explore concepts of temporality; they engage with the passing of time and actively seek out the beauty of aging. In this intimate video work, pigment prints and Raku Nu vessel drawings I consider the gentle ease with which each flower surrenders to its fate acquiring a texture, colour and exquisite beauty I’d previously ignored.

Dena Ashbolt is currently completing a PHD in Fine Art at Monash Art Design & Architecture, and her study focuses on the effects of time by looking at diminishing the gap between viewer and the artwork through considering time as evidenced by movement. Alcaston Gallery welcomes Dena Ashbolt to our stable of artists with this sublime exhibition of photographic pigment prints, video drawings, and drawings on Raku Nu ceramic urns.

Dena would like to thank Babka bakery, Wedgetail Estate Yarra Valley, Calypso Flowers, Method Studios and Monash University, Faculty of Art, Design & Architecture for their support in the exhibition.