"Pandora", 2020, Oil on canvas, 30 by 40 inches, Ashley Beerdat
A fractal landscape, shards of colour and texture tiled irregularly over a kaleidoscopic expanse that reveals glimpses of drifting kelp, rough pebbles on sand, elfin mushrooms, coiled fiddleheads and heavy, trailing vines. Blue beings traverse the scene atop winged imps with reptile faces, and bathe at the foot of a thin waterfall.
"Spirits of the night", Gouache on paper, 9 by 12 inches, Ashley Beerdat
Two blue beings creep across a lush carpet of luminous polypoid flowers, watched over by a stern figure, their path lit by the warm glow of medusal spirits drifting above them. Countless points of light hang on the breeze, making the air itself glitter. A thick vine cuts across the foreground, its fluorescent surface patterned like myriad eyes watching over the forest.
"Bioluminescence", 2020, Gouache on paper, 9 by 12 inches, Ashley Beerdat
The jungle glows the electric blue of sunlight filtering through seawater. The plants reinforce the feeling of being underwater: tentacles coil and sturdy pillars reach upward from the forest floor. Large, rainbow-hued leaves float on the air. Curtains of small, soft leaves dangle like kelp. In the distance, a blue being rides through the air on a winged beast of burden.
“Oel ngati kameie (I See You)," 2020, Gouache on Canvas paper, 9 by 12 inches, Ashley Beerdat
Two blue beings kneel at the center of a small chamber with walls made of glowing, tentacle-like vines. The vines curve gently and protectively as they trail toward the lichen-covered ground. The beings are humanoid, but their features are feline - pointed ears, broad, flat noses and tabby stripes that echo the banded patterns of the vines. Both figures have a single long braid draped over one shoulder. Each holds their own braid close to the end, holding it out to the other, the loose ends of the hair splaying over their fingers as they gaze intently into each other's eyes.
"The Circle of Life", 2020, Gouache on Canvas, 9 by 12 inches, Ashley Beerdat
The blue beings gather in a circle before the great tree. They are dancing with each other, their arms linked into a single, undulating curve like the swell of an ocean rain. Their heads are bent forward, in concentration or prayer. The weeping branches of the tree cascade downward, creating a veil that separates this sacred space from the outside world.
"Blue World", 2020, Gouache on Canvas paper, 9 by 12 inches, Ashley Beerdat
The absence of beings or beasts in the jungle garden bestows a quietness: almost a still life more than a landscape. The branches of deciduous trees converge at the edges of a pond, linked together by a draping, fibrous mass that resembles a tent canopy of silk, dyed in bright purples and pinks. An exuberant golden flower spike reaches over the pond, its weight enough to cause its thick stalk to bend. A small wooden gate peers from between the ferns and flowers at the far end of the pond. Beyond it, the golds and greens of the plant life in the clearing give way to the luminous blues of the forest.
"Carriers", 2021, Oil on Canvas, 48 by 48 inches, Ashley Beerdat
The rainforest has evolved, and in doing so, has converged with the ocean reef. Bioluminescent species cast a surreal underwater glow. Fiddleheads curl into themselves like nautiloids. Fleshy palm fronds fan outward from bulbous stems like sea anemones. Fungal spirits bob gently upon the breeze, their shaggy mycelia dangling like tentacles from bowl-shaped caps. The arc of a lichen-covered branch scaffolds the ecosystem like coral.
"Jumper", 2021, Oil on Canvas, 30 by 40 inches, Ashley Beerdat
The sky is dense and smooth like a piece of polished stone, wormholes punctuating the pastel expanse like agate eyes. Space-suited figures perch atop rockets, their hard, retrofuturistic contours casting them in comic book-like contrast against their environment. Angular, origami planes careen through the space, leaving behind glowing exhaust trails like laser pulses.
"Offworlding", 2021, Oil on Canvas, 30 by 40 inches, Ashley Beerdat
Wormholes, moons and nebulas crowd a hazy cosmos, reflecting light in myriad directions like the globular iridescence of a slab of fire agate. Angular planes tear across the heavens, dwarfed by the celestial bodies, careening to avoid them and each other. Pockets of flame erupt as memorials of their failure. A lone figure protected by a slim jumpsuit and helmet hovers above the urbanized landscape on the planetary surface, supported by the bulky jet pack on their back, mesmerized by the beautiful chaos unfolding before them.
