“I am driven by a deep sense of wonder and curiosity about the non-human world. As an extremely shy child, I dreamed of being able to express myself with bioluminescence, or by quietly passing information through a network of fungal filaments, instead of with spoken words. These desires evolved into a fascination with alternative languages and non-human methods of connection.
Today I study the sentience and sensory capabilities of rocks, squids, clouds, and other beings. I aim to weave stories about desire and longing. Paintings of moth-like Night Pollinators are in conversation with sculptures of flower-like-forms. A pink mist and an awkward rock sit side-by- side. A hand tentatively holds a poisonous centipede. My work is a series of “communication attempts.” Relationships between paintings and sculptures are inspired by interspecies communication, conversations between living and non-living things, and a desire to mitigate ecological and human loneliness. How fully can we understand a cloud, a tree, or a rock? Can we develop a vocabulary that enables us to do that?
Abstract footnotes and color studies accompany certain works, serving as a record of my own (often failed) attempts to connect with the non-human world. They contain information about animal communication, questions about the nature of language, and my deep desire for interspecies understanding.
I believe in the importance of listening to quiet organisms. When human noise and industry drown out the messages between other beings, we miss urgent warning calls about climate change and environmental disasters, as well as opportunities for repair. We also begin to lose quieter transmissions: desire expressed by mating fruit bats, the grief of a bereaved elephant, or expressions of interspecies mutualism and care. I believe in the intrinsic value of these intimate stories.
What does our desire to engage with the non-human world tell us about ourselves? My central goal as an artist is to discover alternative, more vibrant ways of interacting with nature and with each other. “
-Ashley Eliza Williams
Ashley Eliza Williams, born in the Blue Ridge Mountains in SW Virginia, makes work about interspecies communication and non-human language. Williams has exhibited widely including at Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver (CO), Hersbruck Museum (Germany), The National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder (CO), The New York Hall of Science (NY), and Wasserman Projects in Detroit (MI). Her work has been featured in many publications including New American Paintings, The Denver Post, and The Washington Post. In 2022, Williams was an artist-in-residence at Shoals Marine Laboratory on Appledore Island Maine and an MA Fellow at Mass MoCA Studios. Recent residencies include: Sitka Center for Art and Ecology, Vermont Studio Center, and Shangyuan Art Museum, China. This summer she will be a Lucille Walton Fellow and resident artist at the University of Virginia Mountain Lake Biological Station.
Williams often works with scientists, including at the Museum of Comparative Zoology in Boston MA, and McDonald Observatory in West Texas. She is also a founding member of Sprechgesang Institute, an NYC-based interdisciplinary collective working on projects at the intersection of visual art, performance, journalism, music, and the science of in-between languages. Williams lives and works in Western Massachusetts.