The Calendars

The series, Calendar Paintings, are integral to Ash's working practice.
They are large canvases that have a grid structure, which allows for a narrative storytelling thrust and a method of looking forward, of marking time and prompting reflection.

In 1978 Ash painted her first ‘Calendar’ painting. She had just left Camberwell College of Art and was working in Melendez, an animation studio in Carnaby Street that was making ‘The Perishers’. She was finding it hard to keep her painting going and needed a way of working that would accommodate the ‘day job’.

Central to film animation is the structure of storytelling. It occurred to Ash that if she applied the same principal to her painting, breaking it down into sections, she would be able to paint a square a day. The narrative, storytelling-thrust to these paintings directly reflects the comic book-like drawings/storyboards that frame-by-frame sketch out a movie. In the same way these paintings are visual diaries that trace Ash’s life, day-by-day, year-by year, factually and emotionally. They are revealing personal works that depict the contrast of good and bad, dark and light, essential to art and life. They track inevitable change, in the minutia and the big picture. The viewer is invited to discover pictures within the whole that can create relevance for them. Some viewers will have been part of the story.