ABOUT ME
Frances Ashforth’s spare paintings, drawings & prints reflect the geography and geology of intersecting habitats that she has visited and studied. Land, water, mountains and deserts are what inspire Frances. She looks with intention to the land and researches the environments she finds herself in. Her passion for fly fishing and time spent in remote places has allowed her to experience sparsely populated and wild lands across the United States.
Ashforth has exhibited internationally in the UK, Denmark, Ireland & Canada. Her prints have been shown in numerous print biennials and in galleries in New England, California & Idaho. She’s been honored to have work shown in NYC at The IFPDA Print Fair, Art on Paper Fair, IPCNY, The Painting Center, & EFA Blackburn 20/20. Museums such as The MacMaster Museum, Ontario, The Boise Art Museum, ID, The Sun Valley Museum of Art, ID, The Bradbury Art Museum, AR & The Katonah Museum, NY have also shown her work. Her drawings and prints have been featured in magazines such as Orion, Carrier Pigeon, Art in Print and The Adventure Journal. In 2020 she was invited to collaborate with author/friend Dylan Tomine and draw 30+ drawings for his book “Headwaters”, stories of fly fishing & conservation. Published in 2022 by Patagonia Books, ‘Headwaters’ has since received numerous book, design & cover awards.
Water & conservation have always been important themes throughout Frances’s work. In 2017 she self published a hand printed, limited edition portfolio ‘WATER + WORDS’. The project combined images & quotes from conversations with 11 friends across the country. The simple question she asked them was, ‘what does water mean to you?’ Each individual page offers their eloquent answers accompanied by a hand drawn, printed image dedicated to the contributor. Her premise for the portfolio was to simply recognize and thank her friends, whether farmer, rock climber, fisherman, lawyer, river keeper, writer or artist, all have worked tirelessly towards land and water oconservation.
WATER + WORDS has been shown in 8 states from Maine to California and was used by The Community School, Ketchum, ID and Deerfield Academy as a catalyst for collaborations of art & thought. The San Francisco Public Library shared it in ‘Reclamation’ , a show about artists’ books and the environment, with support from The San Francisco Center for The Book & The Codex Foundation.
Editions reside in private collections in Maine, Oregon & Florida.
Frances was invited to present at TEDx MamaroneckHS, NY 2023. Her focus was on the importance art has played in the preservation of landscape. Topics covered natural resource history, the origin of colors, and the important roles artists played in the history of land conservation in our National Park System.
Always eager to be a part of remote landscapes she has been invited to art residencies at Playa, Summerlake, OR, The Ucross Foundation, WY, Apeiron Expeditions Canoe Residency, North Maine Woods and The Freeflow Institute Grand Canyon Expedition led by writers Amy Irvine & Craig Childs.
Her work, whether print, drawing or painting will continue to share feelings of sense of place through observation of weather, light and time. Her hope is that her spare images evoke tension, detail and nuance within landscape, aspects that strike a chord of respect towards the preservation of the raw beauty found in both land and water. Curator and artist, Austin Thomas once wrote, “where some artists don’t look beyond their studio practices or drawing tables, and where others look to the world for attention, Frances looks with intention at the land. She is a conservationist of her own making. Her art is her voice and one that inspires us to think about the bigger picture. Her images are deep and poetically beautiful like a Jonathan McPhee essay that propels one to act or think differently about the earth and our movements on it. Her work is a true balance of both clarity and time.”
