Following on from the success of her first solo exhibition, Alcaston Gallery is proud to present new works on paper and film by Dena Ashbolt, Witnessing Time.

Observing the diminishing life force of a bunch of tulips, Dena Ashbolt uses photographic stills to freeze the delicate motion found in their decay. Through the mediums of photography and video, Dena Ashbolt meditates on the way the fleeting presence of these flowers mirrors her own sense of time passing. Here the artist describes the poetic possibilities of this binary of motion and stillness in her work:

In the studio I am busy drawing movement looking at the moving body, when I notice the flowers around me. The transient existence of a bunch of flowers as it engages in an amazing dance. I am captivated, enthralled by the way the fleeting presence of these flowers mirrors my own temporal passing. Forever unsure of how much time is left, how much longer to go?

In these images I encounter both motion and stillness; they have a silence and a presence that is timeless.

Challenged by the notion that a work may simultaneously hold the past, present and the future, I work to create a lyrical response, tracing the lines of the Tulip’s dance of life and death.

In 2012, Dena Ashbolt was selected as finalist in the Rick Amor Drawing Prize, Art Gallery of Ballarat, Victoria, and the Paul Guest Prize, Bendigo Art Gallery, Victoria, and she was highly commended at The Nillumbik Prize, Montsalvat, Victoria.

- Beverly Knight 2013

Image: © Dena Ashbolt, Alcaston Gallery