DYSGEUSIA :: Ashley Gillam

9.30.17

Main Gallery

Driven by meditations on sacrifice, Ashley Gillam’s work conducts an inquiry into the interactions between various living beings. Her paintings are an investigation of a uniting force that flows between all life forms. This entity can be related to what Ana Mendieta describes as “one universal energy, which runs through everything from insect to man, from man to spectre, from spectre to plant, from plant to galaxy.” Her most recent body of work is a glimpse into the complex, striking nuances of analogousness between human and animal viscera while triggering conflicting sensations of repulsion against the objective pleasure of the painting.

In Dysgeusia, the human body is subjected to the horrors that are endured by factory-farmed animals. The work urges the audience to understand their personal involvement in animal suffering. By placing a semi-anonymous human figure in the place of the animal, Gillam directs the viewers to imagine themselves in the animal’s position. She encourages analysis of the relationships and biases that have been established between humans and the other species that share our environment. These paintings suggest a direct relationship between the victim and the viewer. Gillam argues that If we are appalled by these merciless acts, then we must ask ourselves if we are comfortable with this torture being inflicted upon animals. If not, then we must then consider change. She demands that if a system acts against our values, that we must not turn a blind eye to our own involvement in it.

About the Artist: Ashley Gillam has a BFA from the University of South Florida and this is her debut solo exhibition in the Tampa Bay area.