about
Ash Huse (They/Them) (b. 1997) is a queer lens-based artist established in Chicago, Illinois. Ash's body of work surrounds LGBTQ+ identity through portraiture. Their work also explores themes of queerness, transformation and mental illness through abstract and experimental photographic methods using music software, text/hex editing and rephotographing images on screens. They obtained their Bachelor's Degree in Photography at Columbia College Chicago and are currently pursuing their MFA in Fine Art Photography at Columbia College Chicago. Their work has been featured at Filter Space in Chicago and the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design.
My thesis project, DEADNAME, explores concepts of identity, queerness, self image and mental health. Subverting photographic portraiture, I create images of my own body using music software, changing the code of digital files, and rephotographing images on screens. I investigate ideas of bodily metamorphosis by using a process of corruption and digital abstractions; moving past binary or traditional views in portraiture. The chaos conveys a sense of anxiety and depression that has been attached to my own sense of queerness. I combine all of these elements in my work to have a larger discussion about my gender dysphoria and unease of not feeling wholly male or female, but nonbinary. This series showcases how both revealing and concealing can act in a transformation of self. By performing for the camera and experimenting with a distorted process in the images, I seek out new ways to tell the story of how queer bodies can be a site of transformation and self-discovery.
My other current body of work entitled, "Now You're Here" is a photographic series that explores queer awakening, love, anonymity in the digital age, and long-distance relationships. This exhibition showcases the act of finally being able to meet someone you've only been in contact with online after to the isolation experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Jamie and I never met in person before this project, yet starting in 2019 we talked online every day, making jokes, discussing our days at work and school, expressing our desires, passions, and dreams. We managed to create something beautiful together during the COVID-19 pandemic. Through our time together and supporting one another, we found a special connection built from COVID which allowed us to reflect and meditate on our identities. We both come out as nonbinary after much discussion in isolation. We no longer felt bound by societal cis-heteronormative chains; we could experience the queer liberation we desired, together.
I have been creating portraits of Jamie and myself in a Virtual Reality game called VRChat since 2020. These portraits have given us a way to have intimate moments with one another and to document ourselves as a couple that some people would otherwise consider as not being real; since Jaimie lives in another country and our relationship is online. People could also invalidate our non-binary identity because it does not adhere to their sense of gender. People neglect to talk about how online communities, especially queer online communities, can save lives and give people a safe space to express themselves.
Through the Stuart Abelson Research Fellowship I was finally able to finally meet Jamie in person for the first time. Just as we had been photographing one another virtually for years, being in person with them allowed me to create intimate portraits that reflect the appreciation I had for the long road it took us to be together and the freedom to love unconditionally.
http://www.ashhuse.com
http://www.instagram/ash.huse
