We caught up with Claire Ashley and Vincent Tiley to see where their inspiration and excitement lies in this new course. Inflatables: Paint Skins comes to Ox-Bow this Summer for the first time!
OX: What are you most looking forward to in coming to Ox-Bow to teach next summer?
Vincent Tiley: I’m very excited about the kind of artistic explorations that can happen at Ox-Bow. I think it’s very different than what is generated in a more typical classroom. At Ox-Bow you can really step outside of your focus and enrich yourself in a more self-directed way.
Claire Ashley: I'm always excited to be at Oxbow in person and bask in the landscape, pace, and camaraderie of the community!! There's nothing quite like it! And I'm excited about this new class with Vincent as I've oddly enough never taught an inflatables-specific class before!
OX: What was the inspiration behind joining forces for this new course, especially given that you both taught two popular courses separately? Vincent, will you be bringing any fashion elements to the table from your previous course?
VT: I was Claire’s TA in grad school and had a blast working with her. Claire is also a creative force. Her work is really incredible and fun. I’m very technical. I thought that this class would be possible at Ox-bow because of the success of the fashion class. Clothing and balloons are really similar. They both are essentially skins that are filled with something to give them volume. In the case of balloons that something is air instead of parts of the body.
CA: Vince is an incredibly inventive artist who works with a similar set of concerns as I do, namely inflatables as garments, performance, and the expanded field of painting, so I'm excited that we both will be working together again!! I'm also excited that I get to use the expanded field of painting content from my previous exploding paint class within the context of the inflatable membrane or skin, I'm hoping it will be a model that we can repeat :)
OX: Are there any exciting highlights you would like to share about your course that we can share? What can students look forward to in your course?
VT: I think that the most exciting thing is the possibility for installing outdoors. There’s forest, beach, lake, lagoon, and the campus of Ox-Bow to be explored for installation. The thing about inflatables is something that’s as tall as a house can roll up and fit inside a suitcase or back pack. You can really be playful in just where you install.
CA: I think there will be an abundant amount of energy, play, and curiosity in this class. Both of us strive to build a supportive environment where everyone can take risks, test, play, cavort, and generally explore a more irreverent relationship to an artistic practice.
Born in West Virginia, New York based artist Vincent Tiley (he/they) received an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art. Tiley's garment-based durational performances queer clothings’ myriad uses--often combining multiple performers into one sculptural and painted form; the garments no longer function as outward signifiers adorned by an interior self but fully disguise, restrain, and extend their wearers, irreverent of the corporeal boundaries of individual selves. His work has been featured and reviewed in Art in America, the Chicago Tribune, Performa, and the New York Times. The artist has been widely exhibited internationally including the Museum of Art and Design, the Leslie-Lohman Museum, AxeNeo7, CFHILL, and the International Museum of Surgical Science. His works have been collected by the Whitney Library, the Leather Archives and Museum, Yale University Library, and the Watson Library at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Claire Ashley (she/her) uses her work to investigate inflatables as painting, sculpture, installation, and performance costume. These works have been exhibited nationally and internationally in galleries, museums,site-specific installations, performances, festivals, and collaborations. Her work has been featured on blogs such as VICE, Hyperallergic, and Artforum, and in magazines such as Sculpture Magazine, Art Papers, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, Time Out Chicago, Yorkshire Post, and Condé Nast Traveller. Ashley received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and her BFA from Gray’s School of Art, Aberdeen, Scotland. Originally from Edinburgh, Scotland, Ashley is now Chicago based. Currently, she teaches at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the Department of Contemporary Practices, and the Department of Painting and Drawing.