Ashton Bird (b. 1990) is an emerging installation artist and architectural designer. He currently resides in Prague, Czechia where he is a Master of Architecture candidate at the prestigious Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design (Vysoká škola uměleckoprůmyslová  or UMPRUM). Bird was raised on a farm in southeast South Dakota, received his BFA from Minnesota State University-Mankato, apprenticed at Dakota Pottery in South Dakota, studied at Korea University in South Korea while briefly apprenticing at local Itaewon ceramic shop, and received his MFA from Florida State University. From 2015 to 2020, Ashton founded the 501c3 project space SOUP experimental where he curated 50+ on-site exhibitions, 24 video and written interviews, 3 public art crawls and several large-scale national collaborations between universities and private entities. Bird exhibits at traditional institutes, DIY projects, public art events and online venues. Notable locations include: MINT Atlanta, Atlanta Contemporary, Atlanta Fringe Festival, Day & Night Projects Atlanta, Wiregrass Museum of Art, Delaware Contemporary, Psychic Jacuzzi, The Washington Pavilion of South Dakota, 410 Gallery Mankato, Metropolitan Gallery 250 Philadelphia, Manifest Creative Research Gallery & Drawing Center Cincinnati, and Cat Family Records Tallahassee. He recently finished a his 3-month Nexus residency funded by the Andy Warhol Foundation at the Atlanta Contemporary. From 2019 to 2022 Ashton was a full time architectural lighting designer in The Johnson Studio at Cooper Carry. He has worked on several restaurant and hospitality ventures throughout the United States, but three notable projects include: Rumi’s Colony Square, Atlanta, Spaceman, Hyatt Buckhead and the Casa Don Alfonso, Ritz-Carlton, St. Louis.

My practice investigates realms of mental and physical spaces through constructed fortifications, assemblages and textural paintings or drawings. The basic structures and textural 2D works often display shelters or reference intimate and mundane moments of the human condition. I attempt to ask questions about perception, habit, time and community using reconstituted material as a visual language. I am interested in the fragility of human wellness and the delicateness of life in our places.