Ashley Walters

Sculptor

Ashley Walters was born in Cape Town in 1983. He completed his BAFA (2011) and a Masters in Fine Art (2013) at the University of Cape Town, where he was the recipient of a number of prestigious awards and scholarships, including the Michealis Prize (2011) and Tierney Fellowship Award (2013). Subsequent to this he completed an exchange at Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Braunschweig (2013). Thereafter he was awarded an Apexart Fellowship (2015) in New York and an artist residency in Amersfoort, Netherlands (2017/18). Commissioned by Magnum Foundation his work has been featured widely in publications such as Laying Foundations for Change, Rogue Urbanism: Emergent African Cities, and Aperture magazine: Platform Africa, Summer 2017 edition (#227). Walters has taken part in numerous international exhibitions in Bamako, Netherlands, London, Germany, New York, and exhibited his photographs widely within South Africa.

Walters’ work protagonize a subjective and critical approach to the behaviours and processes of urban life in the city and its periphery. His work tells of an interest in the everyday and public space in its least predictable dimension. Waivering between absolute complicity with his subjects and distant observation, his body of work emphasises a non-spectacular representation of reality. Whereas some images provide tableaus of intimate, inhabited spaces, others render non-territories that bespeak of up-rootedness, scarring, anxiety and liminality.

He currently lives in Cape Town and teaches Photography and New Media at Stellenbosch University.