Artist Statement
Have you ever felt overlooked? Silenced? Trapped? Even replaceable? My photography explores these struggles and offers me a way to be seen and heard. The Lampshade Project, a series of over twenty images, features women whose identity is veiled by a lampshade to signify how ridiculous it is that many woman are silenced, objectified, or expected to remain “hidden.” Does it make you uncomfortable, even angry, to confront an image of these woman who are stripped of their identity and put on display as beautiful objects of decoration? Good, because this paradigm needs to change.
I spend countless hours preparing to make each photograph and my process involves curating the design of the set, the vintage wardrobe and props, as well as selecting the model, all of which simultaneously trap the woman in a bygone era of seemingly outdated values. My subversive photography and The Lampshade Project in particular is a way for me to join the voices of resistance and to visually say, "Nevertheless, she persisted."
But aren’t things getting better, you might ask. Yes and no. Even in the wake of the Me Too movement, with more people being aware of inequalities and outright abuses, I still—as a women moving throughout the world, in business meetings and personal relationships—witness basic incongruities. In my seemingly liberal circles in my seemingly liberal state of California, women are still valued more for their looks than their intellect. Women are still interrupted and their ideas dismissed, as if their opinions were second class. Women are still judged for working if they are simultaneously raising children. Women are still valued more for their quiet domestic service rather than for their accomplishments outside the home. Women are still silenced and hidden every day in personal relationships, business hierarchies, and government service—any place where patriarchy persists. Not to mention more outright abuses happening daily like sexual assault, domestic violence and human trafficking. My hope is that The Lampshade Project, as a series of visual rhetoric, will add to the current conversation and illuminate these inequalities worldwide.
Solo Exhibitions
2023 “Hidden Women/ Mujeres Ocultas” UDCI Universidad de las Californias Internacional, Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico
2022 “Love Always, Birdie” Mixed Media, MYLR Gallery, San Luis Obispo, California
2022 “Hidden Women/ Mujeres Ocultas” CEJUM: Center for Women’s Justice Centro de Justicia Para Las Mujeres, Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico
2021-2020 “Hidden Women” CECUT Cultural Center of Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico
2019 “Art About Town” San Luis Art Museum, San Luis Obispo, California
2017 “Fully Furnished” Gallery 2G, San Luis Obispo, California
2017 “Well Lit” A Satellite of Love, San Luis Obispo, California
Group Exhibitons
2022 Regroup: A Collection of Work by Women, Studios on the Park, Paso Robles, California
2021 Abstract Thoughts: Work by Jenny Ashley, Beryl Vreland, Jordan Hockett, and Allen Cox, Studios on the Park, Paso Robles, California
2020 Golden State Show, The Art Cave, Santa Cruz, CA
2020 Guthrie Contemporary, New Orleans, LA
2019 “The Phantom Project 19” San Luis Art Museum, San Luis Obispo, CA
2019 “The Fine Art of Photography: 9th Annual Awards & Exhibition” Plymouth Center for the Arts, Plymouth, Massachusetts
2019 “All About the Light” San Luis Obispo Art Museum, San Luis Obispo, CA
2019 “Stories” International Juried Photography Exhibit, Juror’s Choice Award, Budapest, Hungary
2019 “Photography Series and Repetition” SITE: Brooklyn Gallery, National Juried Photography Exhibition, Brooklyn, NY
2019 “Unfettered” Southern California Women’s Caucus, Los Angeles, CA
2019 “Women Photographers Today” 12th Annual Julia Morgan Cameron Awardees, Space Nau Bostik, Barcelona, Spain
2019 “Photowork 19” Annual National Juried Photography Exhibition, Barrett Art Center, New York
2019 “Common Ground” Studios on the Park, Paso Robles, CA
2018 "It's Time" Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, Santa Ana, CA
2018 "Mnemonic" H Gallery & Studio, Ventura, CA
2018 “The Phantom Project 18” San Luis Art Museum, San Luis Obispo, CA
2017 “Women’s Work” San Luis Art Museum, San Luis Obispo, CA
2017 “Golden State Group Show” San Luis Obispo, CA
2017 “Exquisite Corpse” San Luis Obispo, CA
2017 “The Phantom Project 17” San Luis Art Museum, San Luis Obispo, CA
Jenny Ashley (b. 1975) is a fine art photographer who lives and works in San Luis Obispo, California, USA. Ashley has a Masters and Bachelor of Arts in English with a minor in Studio Art from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo where she currently teaches composition & rhetoric courses focused on voices of resistance. You can follow her on Instagram: @jenny_bsides or e-mail her at jlisaashley@gmail.com