Walking Art


Many of the paintings, sculptures and assemblages I have created over the years have relied on walking in some form or another. Plein air painting relies on walking and exploring to discover a view I want to paint. Also, many of my studio based paintings are worked up from preliminary sketches and studies made during walks. Moreover, walking is fundamental to collecting found objects and materials that inspire and are incorporated into mixed media and sculpture artworks.

However, partly due to the safety restrictions of Covid-19 and wanting to highlight the issues of our throw-away society, I decided to use a written journal and photos to document my walks and the litter I discovered. Initially, my intention was to use this documentation as inspiration to create new artworks such as, printed books, internet artworks, data art prints, installations, sculpture and mixed media paintings and assemblages: However, I soon realised the walks and journals are an artwork in their own right and a method I want to research further.

Past, Present and Future

Part of of my research is to map and plot the path of each walk and highlight what I discover through contextual study, text, video and photography. I see each plotted route as drawing, physically drawn with my feet, plotted digitally on Google Maps, and then reinterpreted into the physical world in the form of an installation or mixed media artwork.

Converging Time

As an artist I am driven to document my experience of Covid 19, both negative and positive. To explore the human condition and a sustainable way of living both mentally and physically. The pleasure at seeing nature reclaiming the environment and of clean clear skies across the world. Countered, by the feeling of frustration and helplessness, as lockdown eased and so many people returned to a non-sustainable way of living.

Printed Covid-19 art journal

Converging Time printed journal

Object Identity - Beer Can Litter Journal

The litter journal documents the discarded beer and cider cans I have discovered across Cambridge. Ber cans that probably won't be recycled.

The Space I Inhabit

The Space I Inhabit is a multipart artwork documenting a series walks I made along a predefined route over a period of three months. My intention was to record and collect the nitrous oxide canisters found littering local paths and roads. The final artwork is split into three parts; a digital journal where I documented each walk with written observation an photographs, an endless mirrored landscape created using all of the canisters, and a printed journal.

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© 2024 Ashley Baldwin-Smith

Designed and built by Ashley Baldwin-Smith