Ashley Carroll

Lives and works in Columbus, OH, USA

Artist statement

My artwork explores the diversity and multiplicity of Black American hair. I use found materials and recycled synthetic hair to emulate texture and various hairstyles found in Black American hair culture. According to celebrities, media, and business professionals, natural curly hair is ‘wrong’, while straight hair is ‘good’. Having these recollections and personal experiences have left me compelled to explore the racialized notion of beauty from a black feminist point of view. I make work that is multivalent with a focus on pop art aesthetic, allowing it to be shared with both the oppressors and the oppressed. Being a Black American female in the present is not easy. My gender and ethnicity force me to live a very different life and making art about it forces the world to be in my place even if just for a moment. I make art referencing Black American hair culture as a lens to contextualize and frame my personal oppressive experiences. More than anything, I just want to be comfortable existing in the world, I want my culture to be comfortable existing. Making ambiguously poetic and relational art through portraiture, installation, and textiles permits me to speak about racial issues that are being masked, blended, and desensitized in society. The rose is an anchor representing the female, a reoccurring reminder of the delicacy and tenderness of the body. I use the rose as a wallpaper; as an act of covering up and fixing the damage. I collect my trash and use it as a...

Artwork