Artist Statement

Photography by Henri Yonet

 
 

Imagination is liberation. My analog collages are rebellious mashups of the Divine, rooted in a reverence for feminism, the erotic, and earth-based spirituality. Understanding that symbols shape our cultural values, my work seeks to “remyth media” and contribute to a more expansive visual language. Like nature, which thrives in multiplicity, my collages offer varied depictions of the sacred, reminding us there is no singular image of power. By cutting up vintage and contemporary publications, I explore alternative ways of being beyond the constraints of our overculture. Delving into subconscious realms, I unearth mythic narratives—both ancient and emergent—that honor the body, the earth, and the transformative potential within us all.

  • Ashley Edes is a visual ensemblist—an artist, curator, and archivist driven to “re-myth” media, amplifying the creative potential in all of us. Her analog collages unravel dominant cultural narratives and reassemble them into new mythologies. Influenced by feminism, eroticism, and earth-based spirituality, her work explores the sacred through a kaleidoscopic lens, rejecting singular images of power. Using found materials, she excavates subconscious realms to reveal forgotten, suppressed, or yet-to-be-imagined ways of being.

    Edes' practice is rooted in the belief that symbols shape and sustain a culture’s value system. By dissecting vintage and contemporary media, she invites viewers to envision expanded realities—ones that honor nature, the body, and inner sovereignty. Her feminist surrealist works emerge from a lifelong counterculture archive, informed by a deep family legacy of radical publishing. Her cousin, Penelope Rosemont—an artist, activist, and author of Surrealist Women: An International Anthology—has been a key figure in the Surrealist movement since 1965 and co-director of the oldest radical book publisher in America since 1983. Rosemont has also been credited with developing multiple surrealist collage methods. On her father’s side, Benjamin Edes, co-publisher of the Boston Gazette, helped spark and finance the Boston Tea Party and published the first American-born woman to write under her own name.

    Continuing a lineage of creative and political resistance, Edes remains deeply engaged in women-centered exhibitions and projects. In 2024, her work was featured on the cover of HYENA, a publication dedicated to the legacy of women’s surrealism, and included in Seeding Consciousness: Plant Medicine, Ancestral Wisdom, and Psychedelic Initiation by Tricia Eastman. She was both a featured artist and graphic designer in Our Mother the Mountain (2022), a group exhibition alongside Swoon and Betsy Damon, and presented animated collage in the world’s first NFT Biennial, Every Woman Biennial (2021) at Superchief Gallery. Her collage Oshun was selected for Judy Chicago’s Solstice: Create Art for Earth in 2020. In 2019, she co-curated and exhibited in ARS UNA | ART IS ONE, a feminist surrealist group show celebrating the 100th anniversary of surrealism, alongside artists such as Delphine Diallo and Penny Slinger.

    While rooted in the landscapes and seasonal cycles of Maine, Edes ventures abroad for weeks at a time, engaging with global countercultures and gathering materials. These travels inform her studio practice, which she returns to with renewed vision and reverence. Currently, she is immersed in the development of a tarot deck featuring her analog collages, spawning from a global counterculture archive. Through her company FATA Productions, she remains committed to elevating women and gender-expansive artists through exhibitions, publications, and collaborative projects.