Ashley Hope Carlisle
Department of Visual Arts
Professor, Sculpture
Contact Information
(307) 766-3354ach1@uwyo.eduVA 150A
She/her
By Appointment
www.ashleyhopecarlisle.com
B.F.A., University of Southern Mississippi, 1997.
M.F.A., University of Georgia, 2002.
Ashley Hope Carlisle is a Professor of Art in Sculpture at the University of Wyoming, where she has been inspiring students and shaping creative futures since 2003. An artist whose practice spans sculpture, installation, public art, and drawing and painting, Ashleyhope has been creating and exhibiting her work nationally and internationally since 1991, with exhibitions across the United States, Italy, Africa, and England.
Her contributions to contemporary sculpture have been recognized with the International Sculpture Center, the Wyoming Arts Council, and the International Cast Iron Art community.
Originally from New Orleans, Louisiana, Ashleyhope brings a spirit of exploration and resilience to her work and teaching. She calls Laramie, Wyoming, home, where she lives with her husband, David Jones, and their son, Dylan Elijah.
Artist Statement
In my creative practice, I construct an imagined world in which human and plant-like forms converge and intertwine. These works often reference botanical elements—both native and exotic species—including flowers, trees, and root systems, which I fictitiously amplify to investigate the profound interconnectivity between human beings and the natural world. Central to this exploration is the motif of the seed, a metaphorical device through which I examine concepts of human endeavor, protection, escape, and transformation.
Material investigation remains foundational to my process. I engage a diverse range of media, including fabricated steel, cast iron, cast and formed paper, beeswax, pigments, and works on paper. The physical properties and tactile potentials of these materials inform the conceptual frameworks of my work as much as the imagery itself.
A critical area of inquiry within my practice concerns the tension between comfort and discomfort, and how individuals navigate the inevitabilities of survival and adaptation. Rather than emphasizing the inherent difficulties of existence, I strive to cultivate a hopeful awareness of those experiences typically associated with fear and anxiety. Through materiality, formal rigor, and a deliberate sensitivity to touch, I seek to elevate the illusion—or perceived comfort—of protection, proposing instead a dynamic, optimistic engagement with the realities of transition and vulnerability.
Optimism remains a throughline in my visual discourse. Despite the realities of physical pain, psychological struggle, and existential vulnerability, my work endeavors to infuse these themes with a resilient, silvered hope. Each image unfolds through a process of emergence, maturation, decline, and renewal, reflecting a larger cycle of inevitable change. By anticipating transformation rather than resisting it, my practice embraces transition as a generative, even wondrous, dimension of the human condition.
