Ben Ashton

Ben Ashton (b. 1983) is a master of subversion. His art is both beautiful and challenging — a collision of past and future that merges classical painting techniques with contemporary ideas. He has developed a visual language that is instantly recognisable, universally relevant and deeply personal.

Born to an artist father and a mother who led the creative department of a secondary school, Ashton grew up surrounded by art. He studied Fine Art at Newcastle University before completing his MA at the Slade School of Fine Art in London in 2008.

Throughout his life, Ashton has immersed himself in the study of the Old Masters. He paints every day in pursuit of technical perfection, only to distort or dismantle what has been refined. This tension between mastery and disruption lies at the heart of his artistic practice.

His ongoing series To Our Glorious Future focuses on the Regency era and the rise of the British Empire — a period that produced vast amounts of self-congratulatory portraiture that now fills museum walls. Inspired by the “swagger portraits” of artists such as Thomas Lawrence, Ashton reflects the pomposity and theatricality of contemporary discourse.

Technically, his work is also influenced by Lawrence’s unfinished aesthetic: visible ground layers, loosely indicated bodies, and meticulously rendered faces. Through this fusion of historical reference and modern critique, Ashton creates paintings that are both visually striking and conceptually incisive.