Plant Ash Overview

Plant Ash — Overview

For over five years I have explored plant ash from farm fires as a primary material within my practice. What began as a material investigation developed into a broader enquiry into residue, regeneration and ecological cycle.

Plant ash carries layered histories. Traditionally it has been used as a soil-balancing fertiliser for certain crops; it is also the residual trace of both controlled land management and uncontrolled wildfire. Simultaneously destructive and regenerative, ash sits between clearing and renewal.

Within this body of work I have examined:

• The historical and agricultural use of plant ash as a soil amendment

• The relationship between land, living organisms and material residue

• Ash as both by-product and witness — from farm fires to global forest fires

• The domestic and historical use of ash in cleaning practices

Working across canvas, paper and mixed surfaces, I have explored both direct mark-making and environmental process. Some works were buried within ash, allowing microbiome activity and weather to imprint the surface. In others, ash was layered, brushed, scattered or fixed in place through performative acts of making.

Pieces from the Plant Ash series have been exhibited in both the UK and the USA.

Selected Exhibitions

USA — 6 April 2018
Earth Action Initiative Climate Art Show
UC Berkeley, California
Collaborative work Footprints exhibited with Arminée Chahbazian.

UK — 12 September – 10 October 2018
Ash
The Engine Room, Poundbury, Dorset

UK — June 2016 – June 2017
75 Ash Imprints
HIX Academy Restaurant, Weymouth, Dorset

UK — From 11 October 2018
Selected works from the Ash collection remain on display as part of Living with Art at Orchard View and Hazel Copse Cottages, Dorset.

Ash works

Farm wood and fire ash

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Ash 1 (before the canvas was fractured and disseminated)

Ash 3

Exhibited Ash Canvas Panels

Footprint, part of my Plant Ash series, was exhibited at the Earth Action Climate Art Show, UC Berkeley, California (2018). It was shown alongside a distinct footprint work by my Arts Territory Exchange partner, Arminée Chahbazian, created in the ashes of California wildfires — two works linked through material trace but rooted in different geographies.

Tiny canvas fire imprints that made up the three large panels below:

75 Tiny Fire Ash Canvases, arranged across three 1m x 1m canvas-covered panels, were exhibited for one year at HIX Academy Restaurant, Weymouth, Dorset, UK (2016–2017). The work is now presented as part of the ongoing Living with Art exhibition at Hazel Copse Cottage, Dorset.

Experiments with Plant Ash on Paper
Sheets of heavy paper were placed over ash-covered organic matter and left outdoors for several weeks. When uncovered, some panels had partially disintegrated, retaining subtle microbiome markings formed through natural breakdown.

Shown alongside are fragments drying after exposure — surfaces marked less by ash itself and more by the unseen processes beneath.