Malcolm Ashman RWA RBA

Born in Bath, Somerset in 1957, Malcolm Ashman is a multi-disciplinary artist working in painting, drawing, digital printmaking, photography and sculpture.

He is an academician at the Royal West of England Academy (RWA), a member of the Royal Society of British Artists and President of the Bath Society of Artists.

“Two subjects have engaged me over many years, the landscape and the figure. I don’t maintain a single cohesive style but prefer to allow each piece to dictate how I will respond.
The landscape paintings, at one time directly observed, are worked from brief drawings and memory; the process has become as important as the subject matter. As a child the landscape was a place of escape, I could draw, paint or just observe and imagine. An early lesson in the joys of solitude that’s stayed with me.
Working with the figure is a totally different proposition. I want it to be an interactive process and I enjoy the unnerving prospect of not being in complete control. My impulse is to observe closely, recording as accurately as possible my response to the sitter and their response to me. Both paintings and drawings are built of layers and repeated marks over a long period, the resulting work a hybrid of both myself and my model, a record of time spent.”

Exhibitions in London and the south of England include the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, the Threadneedle Prize, the Derwent Drawing Prize, the Royal Watercolour Society Competition, the Black Swan Open and the Millfield Open, Somerset.

He has exhibited with the Royal Institute of Oil Painters (ROI), the New English Art Club (NEAC), the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours (RI), the Royal Society of Portrait Painters (RP), the Pastel Society (PS), the Royal Watercolour Society (RWS), the Royal West of England Academy (RWA), the South West Academy (SWAC) and the Bath Society of Artists, Victoria Gallery, Bath.

Solo exhibitions at Beaux Arts Bath and the Nevill Gallery, Bath and Canterbury, Brian Sinfield Gallery in the Cotswolds, Denise Yapp Gallery, Monmouth and Rowley Gallery in London and Winchester.

Two man and group shows at Andelli Art, Wells, Bath Contemporary, Bath, the Jerram Gallery, Sherborne, the Piccadilly Gallery and the Medici Gallery, Cork Street, London.

Collaborative works with Inger Karthum exhibited with Hole Art Center at Galleri Klevjer and Risør Kunstpark in Norway and Bath Contemporary and ‘Togetherness’ at the Royal West of England Academy, Bristol, UK as part of an ongoing project ‘Walking the Hills’.