Ashleigh Coleman
When I first began thinking about this work, I talked to my then seven year old daughter about voting. The children always come to vote with me. We talk about the importance of voting. Yet, it felt strange to articulate that, this year, we are celebrating 100 years of women being allowed to vote—not that distant a past. It felt even more surreal to then explain that while women won the right to vote, it was another forty years before African American men and women could vote in the South—another staggering reality. As we continued to talk about voting and human rights over the following months, my mind turned to metamorphosis—change sometimes being hidden, sometimes slow, oftentimes painful, then blazing into the foreground, striking everyone with awe and wonder.
Ashleigh Coleman was born in the mountains of Virginia, reared in South Carolina, and for the last decade has lived in rural Mississippi. Through her work, she is looking for her way home, searching for peace in chaos. In the meantime, her work has been exhibited across the United States, including solo shows at the Fischer Galleries in Jackson, MS, the University of Mississippi's Center for the Study of Southern Culture, and the Claire Elizabeth Gallery in New Orleans. Her work has shown at the University of West Virginia, the University of Southern Mississippi, Barrister's Gallery in New Orleans, the Griffin Museum of Photography, and is currently part of Looking for Appalachia's traveling exhibition and the South Arts States Fellowship Prize for Mississippi.
instagram: @ashleighcoleman
