Ash's NASCENT SERIES presents us with a query. A beautiful digital mirror.
Fifteen visual cyphers. Deliberately rendered questions. Questions about our ongoing relationship with technology... Questions that we'd rather not think about.

Created in collaboration with the very same technology he asks us to examine, Ash's latest pieces reveal our modern fears and ideas of complacency, addiction, and ignorance in ways that feel almost primal. Digital in creation, and organic in design and aesthetic, the series also effectively parses the growth of artificial intelligence in our culture.

In this new frontier, where does the individual and the machine end? Does it matter?

My personal connection to Ash's work goes back decades, but is consistently solidified by the inherent empathy evoked by his prolific output, and his overwhelming desire to understand oneself. We've always bonded over an intense belief that to truly grow as an artist, you must ruthlessly challenge your ideologies. When an artist challenges themselves the way Ash does, you feel it immediately.... Because he confronts you in return.

Ash is one of the rare creatives who has wholly dedicated his life to understanding himself through expression. Willing to spend decades in mental isolation, honing his craft, he's used brute force to explore the unknown within. His work resonates because we can feel that these efforts are not a selfish pursuit. He has put in the work so that he can better share with us all. His goal in expressing himself is the same for all who encounter the icons he conjures:

Enlightenment.

About the Author

Anthony Scott Burns is a Canadian filmmaker, visual effects artist and musician. He releases music under the moniker Pilotpriest and is a director of feature and short films.