Ashley Perry

22 — 24 May 2020

An Incomplete Register examines the impact of settler colonialism on institutional records. Each of the works in this exhibition are derived from stories and objects of the Yoolooburrabee (Quandamooka People), and challenge discrepancies and omissions within colonial institutional archives. For An Incomplete Register Ashley Perry draws on several collection databases and external sources to reveal inconsistencies, producing quasi artefacts and fictitious records that operate in a speculative space wherein Indigenous authorship is reclaimed, and fragments of stories and objects from across time are merged.

Ashley Perry is an interdisciplinary Goenpul artist from Quandamooka country. He is Interested in decolonising theories as a way of understanding materials, histories, and artistic practice and examining knowledge structures and methods around collections. Perry works across sculpture, drawing, printmaking and new media utilising a wide variety of materials, from traditional processes such as copperplate etching to more contemporary such as .html programming. He completed a Bachelor of Fine Art in Sculpture and Spatial Practice with honours at the Victorian College of the Arts. Perry has exhibited in galleries across Melbourne including Margaret Lawrence Gallery, West Space, Incinerator Gallery and the McClelland Gallery & Sculpture Park. He recently presented work in Florence, Italy for the First Commissions Project, the University of Melbourne. He was the recipient of the Mary and Lou Senini Prize in sculpture (2017) and the Fiona Myer Award (2017). in the In 2017 Ashley was awarded an exchange to the Indonesian Institute of the Arts, Yogyakarta as a part of the New Colombo Plan scholarship.

Accompanying text by Sophia Sambono.