Ashley Holmes is an artist interested in publishing, broadcasting, and experimental approaches of working with sound and performance. His work explores sound as archive and method, to think about sites of knowledge production, collective memory, and political possibility. Holmes’ recent research investigates how Western norms of ownership and property shape the circulation of music, access to land, and relationships to place, situating these questions within a wider discourse around identity, coloniality, and cultural production.
Ashley is a resident on NTS Radio, where he has hosted Tough Matter, a monthly show of experimental music and sound since 2017. He has been organising Open Deck, a series of gatherings giving space to collectively listen and hold discussion around embodied knowledges and relationships to music, sound, memory and oral histories. Ashely has exhibited work and performed at arts organisations and festivals including: V&A Museum, Frieze London, Turner Contemporary, Arts Catalyst, Primary, Horst Arts & Music Festival, No Bounds Festival, We Out Here Festival and more. In 2024 he was recipient of the Serpentine’s Support Structures for Support Structures fellowship award. He teaches on the BA Fine Art programme at Liverpool John Moores University where he is also currently completing an MA in Fine Art.
For work enquiries and bookings please get in touch via ‘contact’ tab at the top of the page
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Solo exhibitions
2024 - Skylarking, Arts Catalyst, Sheffield
2022 - We Came The Long Way, And I Thought You Knew, QUAD Derby
2021- Trust Melody, Humber Street Gallery, Hull
2021- Distend Leeds Art Gallery
2020 - A Free Moment, Futura Centre for Contemporary Art, Prague
2018 - Cry Then Win Then Loose Reaction, Two Queens, Leicester, 2018
2017 - Money Cyant Fool Them Again, 1.1, Basel
2017 - Shape Up, Losers Gym, Nottingham
Group exhibitions
2024 - SADACCA F.M, with Memory Dance & White Teeth, No Bounds Festival, SADACCA Sheffield
2024 - Imagining Otherwise, Primary, Nottingham
2023 - In The Offing, Turner Contemporary, Margate
2023 - On Listening, Lothringer 13, Munich
2022 - Callings From The Deep, Das Weisse Haus, Vienna
2019 - away, completely: denigrate, curated by Languid Hands, Narrative Projects, London
2019 - Football is Art, National Football Museum, Manchester
2018 - Survey, Jerwood Arts; G39, Cardiff; The Bluecoat, Liverpool; BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead
2018 - …And Their Tooth, Finest Gold, curated by Deborah-Joyce Holman, Les Urbaines festival, Lausanne
2018 - Collective Failure, J Hammond Projects, London
2018 - The Teachers, with Haich Per Na, Peak, London
2018 - Starless Midnight, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead
2017 - Medieval City One, Two Queens, Leicester
2016 - A British Art Show, curated by Joseph Buckley, Meyohas, New York
2016 - A Small Group Show of British and American Artists, curated by Joseph Buckley, Space Space, Tokyo
Sound, Composition & Broadcast
current - Tough Matter, NTS Radio
2023 - Soliloquy Dubs, Changing Currents podcast, Arts Catalyst
2023 - Mix for Output Gallery, Melodic Distraction Radio
2022 - Celestial, Sublow, Montez Press Radio
2022 - Pending, Still (Sync n Feeling Dub), consent not to be a single being: Worlding Through the Caribbean, by UAL Transnational Transcultural Arts & Culture Exchange
2022 - Reworks/PDA, Radio Arts Catalyst
2022 - No Matter Where You Go, No Matter Where You Roam, commission for Skin Deep x Resolve Collective
2021 - Routes, Interruptions: Sounds, Holden Gallery
2020 - Time & Times, Pt II, Mostyn x Montez Press Radio
2020 - Time & Times, Solstice Radio
Performance
2025 - Performance for Shifting Realities, for Migration Matters Festival, Sheffield
2025 - Volume, performance w Jamal Sterrett for Sound Clash, V&A East, London
2024 - Volume, performance w Jamal Sterrett for Decale, Ormside Projects, London
2024 - Sounds From The Ground, performance event w Nkisi & KMRU, Arts Catalyst / SADACCA
2024 - Performance at Bergen Centre for Electronic Arts (BEK), Bergen
2023 - Horst Arts & Music festival, Brussels
2023 - Sonic Lecture, lecture & listening session at Metro 54, Amsterdam
2023 - Decaying Tail of a Sound, performance event w Ratiba Ayadi & Seigfried Komidashi, FACT Liverpool
2022 - Crucial, performance at Auto Italia South East, London
2021 - Even Myself Knows That Too (Journal Dub) performance at FRIEZE Live, London programmed by Languid Hands
2019 - Double 6, performance w R.I.P. Germain at courtroom of Leeds Town Hall, commissioned by Poor Image Projects, Leeds
2018 - Good To Us, performance at Survey, Jerwood Arts; G39, Cardiff; The Bluecoat, Liverpool; BALTIC, Gateshead
2018 - AAA, performance at Two Queens, Leicester
Awards, residencies and fellowships
2024 - Serpentine Support Structures for Support Structures Fellowship
2021- Jerwood Arts x FACT Liverpool Fellowship
2021 - Shortlisted for Kleinwort Hambros emerging art prize
2020 - Henry Moore Foundation Award
2020 - Radio Arts Catalyst Residency
2016 - Platform Residency, Site Gallery, Sheffield
