Ashley Holmes is an artist with a practice that blends an interest in elements of art, sound and Black music in relation to experiences of survival, resistance, and liberation. His work ranges across sound compositions, audio essays, radio broadcasts, exhibitions, listening events and DJ sets. Recent project Skylarking, commissioned in 2024 by Arts Catalyst, explored collaborative methods of production, publishing and broadcasting - informed by a wider interest the unique and powerful influence of Dub.
Ashley hosts Tough Matter, a monthly show on NTS Radio and is a resident on Mondo Radio and at No Bounds Festival. He facilitates Open Deck, a series of gatherings started in 2018, giving space to collectively listen and hold discursive space around embodied knowledges and relationships to music, sound, memory and oral histories.
He is a lecturer in Fine Art at Liverpool John Moores University and has shown work and facilitated workshops with arts organisations and performed at festivals including: Factory International, V&A Museum, We Out Here Festival, Primary, Arts Catalyst, Turner Contemporary, Horst Arts & Music Festival, FACT Liverpool and Frieze London.
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Horst Festival (2023) photo by James Clarkson
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Solo exhibitions
Skylarking,
Arts Catalyst, Sheffield, 2024
We Came The Long Way, And I Thought You Knew
QUAD Derby, 2022
Trust Melody
Humber Street Gallery, Hull, 2021
Distend
Leeds Art Gallery, 2021
A Free Moment
Futura Centre for Contemporary Art, Prague, 2020
Cry Then Win Then Loose Reaction
Two Queens, Leicester, 2018
Money Cyant Fool Them Again,
1.1, Basel, 2017
Shape Up,
Losers Gym, Nottingham, 2017
Group exhibitions
SADACCA F.M.
with Memory Dance & White Teeth, No Bounds Festival, SADACCA Sheffield, 2024
Imagining Otherwise
Primary, Nottingham, 2024
In The Offing
Turner Contemporary, Margate, 2023
On Listening
Lothringer 13, Munich, 2023
Callings From The Deep
Das Weisse Haus, Vienna, 2022
away, completely: denigrate
curated by Languid Hands, Narrative Projects, London, 2019
Football is Art
National Football Museum, Manchester, 2019
Survey
Jerwood Arts; G39, Cardiff; The Bluecoat, Liverpool; BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, 2018
…And Their Tooth, Finest Gold
curated by Deborah-Joyce Holman, Les Urbaines festival, Lausanne, 2018
Collective Failure
J Hammond Projects, London, 2018
The Teachers
with Haich Per Na, Peak, London, 2018
Starless Midnight
BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, 2017
Medieval City One
Two Queens, Leicester, 2017
A British Art Show
curated by Joseph Buckley, Meyohas, New York, 2016
A Small Group Show of British and American Artists
curated by Joseph Buckley, Space Space, Tokyo, 2016
Sound, Composition & Broadcast
Tough Matter
NTS Radio, 2017 - current
Mondo Radio
Sheffield, 2017 - current
Soliloquy Dubs
Changing Currents podcast, Arts Catalyst, 2023
Mix for Output Gallery
Melodic Distraction, 2023
Celestial, Sublow
Montez Press Radio, 2022
Pending, Still (Sync n Feeling Dub)
consent not to be a single being: Worlding Through the Caribbean
by UAL Transnational & Transcultural Arts & Culture Exchange, 2022
Reworks/PDA
Radio Arts Catalyst, 2022
No Matter Where You Go, No Matter Where You Roam,
commission for Skin Deep x Resolve Collective, 2022
Routes
Interruptions: Sounds, Holden Gallery, 2021
Time & Times, Pt II
Mostyn x Montez Press Radio, 2020
Time & Times
Solstice Radio, 2020
Talks & Performances
V&A Museum, London, 2024
Bergen Centre for Electronic Arts (BEK), Bergen, 2024
Horst Arts & Music festival, Brussels, 2023
Sonic Lecture, lecture & listening session at Metro 54, Amsterdam, 2023
Decaying Tail of a Sound, w Ratiba Ayadi & Seigfried Komidashi, FACT Liverpool, 2023
Crucial, performance at Auto Italia South East, London, 2022
Even Myself Knows That Too (Journal Dub) FRIEZE Live, London programmed by Languid Hands, 2021
Double 6, with R.I.P. Germain at courtroom of Leeds Town Hall, commissioned by Poor Image Projects, Leeds, 2019
AAA, Two Queens, Leicester, 2018
Awards, residencies and fellowships
Jerwood Arts x FACT Liverpool Fellowship, 2021
Henry Moore Foundation Award, 2020
Radio Arts Catalyst Residency, 2020
Platform Residency, Site Gallery, Sheffield, 2016
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