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Quest for the Heart of Gold - Ashley Cook
New Screenprints by Ashley Cook
This body of work is important to me personally, as these are the first screenprints I have made since 2005.
Around the time I stopped screenprinting I had been feeling increasingly disillusioned and empty about my existence on the planet. Everything seemed a bit meaningless and the devices I had always used to feel alive (creativity, hedonism, materialism, romance etc….) weren't really working any more, but I didn't know what to do instead. I had recently paid off my mortgage and my debts in a property downsize but I didn't feel content; I felt really empty. I wanted change. Then I was the victim of a distressing sexual attack by a complete stranger and that propelled me into making plans to leave Glasgow and to effect change.
It seems that adversity provided opportunity and I got rid of most of my possessions, rented out my flat and held an auction of my work of the last 25 years to finance buying and shipping over art materials for a programme of volunteering in The Gambia, West Africa. I ran a 6 month creative project for children, young people and women in Bundung, Wellingara and Abuko, working with Faye Suso of JUICE, the Joint Undertaking in Community Education. I came back to Glasgow in their rainy season and stayed with friends while I earned enough money to return to The Gambia for an ethical tourism project with the Travel Foundation.
This 6 month project was at Juffureh and Albreda, the UNESCO World Heritage site of James Island prison, preserved as a tragic reminder of the days of slave trading in West Africa. Currently the village children are pushed forward to beg from tourists by their parents. My remit was to open a new Children's Centre as a skills training resource, and marketing outlet where the arts and crafts I taught the children to make were available for sale to tourists, to promote a progressive and responsible interface with income generation through tourism to replace begging.
My time in The Gambia was an extremely rewarding and challenging experience. I lived in a rural community upriver as a local person does without electricity, sharing my room with lizards and frogs, negotiating snakes and bees that kill cows and sheep on my journey home from the Children's Centre.
I feel very privileged to have had these experiences and to have met the warm and wonderful people of The Gambia. Somehow my 'no frills' existence there made me feel vital again and provided me with an ability to put things into perspective, count my blessings and see the beauty in ordinary life. I also met my partner there and I am getting married to him later this year. I am still involved with JUICE and hope to run more community workshops there next year. I think the real quest has been to try to find the gold in my own heart.
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Long Distance
monoprint, 66 x 66 cms
£ 700.00
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If you want to see the rainbow you've got to put up with the rain,
screenprint, 48 x 48 cm
£380.00 + VAT
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Journeys End
screenprint, 48 x 48 cm
£425.00
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South For The Winter
screenprint, 48 x 48 cm
£380.00 + VAT
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Escape to Paradise
screenprint, 66 x 66 cm
£700.00
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Waiting at the Station,
monoprint, 61 x 61 cms
£700.00
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