British oil painter Ben Ashton creates mind-bendingly beautiful and strange oil paintings in the style of aristocratic portraits from the 18th century. His latest body of work, titled "To Our Glorious Future," is now hanging at the new location of Seattle's Roq La Rue Gallery today through the end of the month. The opening night reception is tonight from 6-9pm. From Roq La Rue:
Ashton's work delves into the myths, lies and confabulations of class, supremacy, and the weaponisation of nostalgia. Skewering the concept of aristocracy via the swagger portraits of Empire, his work also evokes a dark hallucinogenic beauty that entices the viewer in. Running the gamut from ethereally delicate to brutally grotesque, the work is always mesmerizing.
This show will contain oil paintings on canvas as well as paper. There will be a stereoscopic painting featuring two identical images hand painted by Ashton alongside a viewer also created by the artist. Additionally, noticing how often gallery visitors take photos of themselves looking at paintings, the artist has created a large backdrop of the same surrealistic backgrounds found in his paintings that viewers can take photos of themselves in front of and place themselves within the painting!
