Ashley Hanson  Contemporary Colorist Painter Artist.  Born: Blackpool, England 1960
Ashley Hanson  'The Englands'  5th - 1st May  2008 at The Modern Artists Gallery Berkshire 

The main exhibition 'The Englands' is on show until 1st May.  However 7 paintings will remain as ongoing.

Renowned  artist Ashley Hanson's latest exhibition at the Modern Artists Gallery offers a flavour of both Cornwall and the United States.  Based on experience and memory, Hanson's unique visions of coastal Cornwall and New England. are multi-layered, vibrant and driven by ideas.

Combining imagination and observation, and using   'map shapes' of the states and harbour-towns, these ambitious, strikingly coloured and intensely painted canvases, littered with lighthouses and coastal imagery, reinvent and rejuvenate the traditional themes of Cornish painting. 

Embedded in the Porthleven  series of paintings is the St Piran's Cross, symbolising their Cornish identity.
 
The idea for 'The Englands' came looking out to sea from Cape Cornwall:
"Here I was, at the end of England, looking towards America, remembering that I had stood on the other side of the ocean, on the Maine coast, looking towards England. The Englands ... , the words struck a chord, the places on the edge, the shared landscape, the shared history, the shared place names, connected by the Atlantic Ocean. I was excited by the prospect of interlinking my American and my Cornish work and painting about two places at the same time, the wild east and the wild west! This duality was already happening in the later paintings in the Porthleven series, where I was working the two sides of the canvas and was further explored in the Fowey river paintings.

"Producing the work for 'The Englands' presented me with one of my greatest challenges as for the first time the words came before the work." Ashley Hanson, Modern Artists Gallery Berkshire 2008

Awards
             1997 Boise Travel Scholarship to North America, Slade School of Art
             1991 Hunting Art Prize – SECOND PRIZE

           

Collections
             Lord Gowrie ‘The Street’
             Private collections in UK, Europe and America
           

           

Solo Exhibitions

           

2008 APRIL ‘ The Englands’ Modern Artists Gallery Berkshire UK
             2007 ‘States of Colour’, Shire Hall Gallery, Bodmin, Cornwall
             2003 ‘A m e r i c a s c a p e s’, Quay Arts, Newport, Isle of Wight

           

             Mixed Exhibitions

           2008 SEPT Morley Contemporary Art, Torpoint, Cornwall
             2008 MAY Somerville Gallery, Plymouth, Devon, Gallery Artist
             2008 ‘March Exhibition’, Innocent Fine Art, Bristol
             2007 Christmas show, Innocent Fine Art, Bristol,
             2007 Cry of the Gulls Gallery, Brighton
             2007 Padstow Fine Art, Padstow, Cornwall, Gallery Artist
             2007 Cry of the Gulls Gallery, Fowey, Cornwall, Gallery Artist
             2007 Summer Exhibition, Shire Hall Gallery, Bodmin, Cornwall
             2007 Group Show, Vitreous Contemporary Art, Truro
             2005 The Dentists Surgery, City of London
             2003 The Yard Gallery, East Dulwich, London
             2003 ‘Above, Beyond & Below’, Modern Artists Gallery, Berkshire, UK
             2003 Affordable Art Fair, London, c/o Modern Artists Gallery Berkshire UK