The Deep Green Sea an exploration of healing and fantasy at Bunbury gallery

An exhibition diving into the relationship between the natural world and healing oneself opened at the Bunbury Regional Art Gallery on Friday night. The Deep Green Sea is the latest exhibition opened in the chapel studio by artist Kelsey Ashe. Dr Ashe’s exhibition features prints of Australian landscapes with dark imagery and hand-made textiles, some of which glow in the dark. She said her work was her own fairy tale based on landscapes around her and represents a healing process with the exhibition previously delayed after Dr Ashe’s daughter Delphi became sick. “I made the entire exhibition ready to open when my daughter got very sick and was in hospital for six months,” she said. “She had a malignant brain tumour and it caused an injury that’s left her in a wheelchair. “The whole exhibition was delayed by 12 months; during that time I had to stop everything. The exhibition became a healing journey, the characters in my work became not just my story but Delphi’s story too.” Dr Ashe said she makes “territories that look like a dream” based on places people can visit. “We’ve got Sugar Loaf Rock, Castle Rock, some places in Bunbury and some Tasmanian landscapes,” she said. Dr Ashe draws on Japanese aesthetics and philosophy, which she has a PhD in. “I was always a print-maker and print-making and Japanese aesthetics just go hand-in-hand,” she said. “The Australian landscape has many spiky, scary things but also a lot of wide open spaces, which lends itself to Japanese aesthetic philosophy.” Part of the exhibition features a performance of Butoh, a Japanese form of dance theatre created after World War II. Butoh is characterised by its highly expressive and improvised nature, which Dr Ashe believes fits perfectly with her work. “Butoh works so well because it’s improvised and about expression, but also about wellness. It’s about releasing emotion and I thought it was the perfect way to bring everything together.” Dr Ashe said she hoped people felt “transported to another world”. “I hope they spend their time here and they find themselves in here and also recognise a lot of the landscapes and go to a place that’s their own,” she said. The Deep Green Sea is now open at BRAG until February 16.