Paul Ashton

Paul Ashton is an award winning contemporary artist, whose studio is currently based in Gomersal near Leeds, Northern England.  

Having returned to art full time in 2012, despite life threatening incidents, incarceration and experiencing near starvation in Vietnam, he has maintained his practice.  

Ashton presents the portrait as a central theme and his subject exudes external character and inner beauty.  

Ashton studied Contemporary Art at Leeds Metropolitan University, where his work specialised in situationist installation and conceptual minimalism. He suspended a child's coffin in a church, to discuss atheism and interrupted a pedestrian walkway with a "do not cross line" made from a line of flowers.   

Winner of the Northern Wild Card for Sky Arts Landscape Competition in 2019. Paul was awarded two winning places recently in the Bradford Open and was commissioned by Morley Arts. 

Ashton's work is now internationally collected in locations as diverse as Vietnam, Australia, Canada and even closer to home, at her Majesty's Prison Sudbury.   

Today, he continues to develop through teaching and employing traditional artisan methods, utilising differing mediums and clashing styles.