Ashley Fenton, artist
The Storm, 2020
Photoprint / body art

My art style has not really been affected by the pandemic.  I like to create things in all styles.  I like to paint on canvas, but I love to do different make-up paints on myself and friends.

I have been doing body art since I was ten (for about three years).  I first started when my mother started doing things with my face for Halloween, then I discovered I could just do it myself. Make-up isn’t just to make people look pretty. It is a kind of thing that is creative. You can make anything. It makes people think.

When I was doing The Storm I was at first going for a creepy doll look and then it started turning into wind and branches, and I thought, “This looks good.”  It has the sense of a gloomy day with branches floating away – just a sad droopy day.  The artwork just popped up like that!