ART PRACTICE

Ashley Hollan (she/they) is an intermedia storyteller, entertainment and civil rights lawyer, critical theorist and educator. Through aesthetic witchery and advocacy, Ashley’s audiovisual spellwork illuminates hidden histories and interrogates legal quandaries to shift perspectives and disrupt dystopian outcomes. Through supernatural interventions considering court cases and current events, Ashley’s multidisciplinary practice calls into question accepted institutional norms, always implicating the audience, making artistic arguments to inspire awareness and political activism.

 

Ashley earned her BA in Public Policy and Visual Art/Art History at Duke University, attended law school at the University of Denver and graduated from Pacific Northwest College of Art with her MFA in Visual Studies and MA in Critical Studies. She currently serves as a Visiting Professor of Arts Administration and Art at Elon University and is the Principal at Make/Believe Law LLC.

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Ashley has been a part of legal and production teams crafting groundbreaking movies, music, virtual reality, advertising and visual art content. Her art has been exhibited throughout the Southern and Pacific Northwest regions of the United States and online, including as juried selections for the 2021 UVA Artworks Northwest Biennial in OR, the juried FL3TCH3R Socially and Politically Engaged Art Exhibit at the Reece Museum at East Tennessee State University, shows at Alberta Abbey and Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, OR, at Elon University in Elon, NC and at the Wilma W. Daniels gallery in Wilmington, NC. Her recent residencies, collaborations and independent studies include writing and visual art residencies at Caldera Arts Center in OR, a sound art residency at Campbient in WA, a metalsmithing residency at Ignite in Asheville, NC, participation in a collective build at Love Burn in FL and collaboration with The Alternative Art School online.