Ashley Gray

Ashley Gray is a London-based digital artist whose work blends 3D modeling and digital painting to explore themes of emotion, identity, and the human psyche. With a background in computer games art, he creates visually striking pieces that often begin as sculpted digital forms before evolving into layered, expressive compositions.

His art is known for its introspective tone—often confronting ideas like grief, ego, and transformation through surreal, skeletal imagery and dramatic lighting. Gray’s process is both technical and deeply personal, using digital tools to give shape to intangible feelings and philosophical questions.

Recent exhibitions, including a showcase at Shibuya Station in Tokyo, have brought his work to international audiences, highlighting his ability to connect through visual storytelling. Ashley Gray continues to push the boundaries of digital media, crafting art that resonates emotionally and invites reflection.

Ashley, congratulations on receiving the Premier Art Prize, a well-deserved recognition of your evocative and immersive work. As someone who operates in the liminal space between 2D and 3D yet resists traditional digital constraints, how do you conceptualize your relationship with the digital medium as a vehicle for human emotion, memory, and existential reflection?

As a person with a educational background in computer games and some experience with some digital media, I am aware of the constraints for different outputs for example a game engine over an animation or video, but for me imagery especially art, imagery has its own rule set and I'm just adapting more to that or have ben pushing in that direction, my work has always been slightly different, from my perspective it has been mostly having some faith in my style or what I'm doing rather than doing more render based things or things that fit more in an industry.

As for how I see it as a medium, I see it as another form, a tool like the difference between a paintbrush and a mouse or a microphone, people can create beautiful things with these tools, naturally there are skill levels but I think most creative people are trying to evoke something for example a band, they play together to make music in the hope that it take you somewhere mentally, films are somewhat the same, to draw you into the world an I think just like paintings or photography and other forms of imagery as a tool digital art can achieve the same things.

As for my relationship to digital or to art, I see art or creativity as a battle, many artists use their medium to battle a kind of nothingness, to make people feel to draw attention to the significance of reality? There are many films, songs, images, that are good but not of note, at the higher end there are many that are known all over the world for some essence within them. Traditional media do film and TV, musicians do music, painters paint everyone is working to put out a kind of pulse, if no one created anything the universe would not magicly create anything, there would be nothing. So to me I see digital images as just a part of imagery where I also try to make something good that captures something well enough to be of some note.

Your work often explores deeply emotive terrains such as grief, isolation, and pain, but never without an undercurrent of hope and shared humanity. Can you speak to how these dichotomies emerge through your recurring motifs like the tail, the halo, or even the luminous palette, often contrasted with shadow? Do these symbols serve as personal markers or universal archetypes?

For me this is a reflection on myself or individuals as artists, there is a theme of introspection and projection, art for me is set in this duality of the artist and the audience or the viewer. I mostly just make personal reflections, from a certain view I can't not be myself, my work is dark and has a focus on pain, but for me its just who I am where my mind goes? If I spent my days thinking about landscapes and flowers then I would have the ideas to make what I do. The viewer also sees this but what is not quite so known is the hope and humanity between me and whoever the viewer is as well as viewers to each other. From my perspective being an artist suggests a sense of credit or following or audience and if you feel anything from my work or like any of my art then I am at least saying I somewhat understand... something, you may not be anything like me, you may not even like me, and though my work is dark if it has any meaning then there is connection, a shared humanity, because I am defiantly only human also. Like a scream into the void that viewers kind of understand, because I would still be screaming regardless if anyone was listening, connection and hope isn't always centred around hopeful things. We connect somewhat in our collective despair.

As for my many symbolisms and style, I like to think of my work as more direct, colour is less about pretty things or fine elegant tones and more about what it communicates things may appear more intense than they need to be, areas or simplified compared to other works, I am always trying to do what is best to capture the thing I want to explain, many of my images have dark or pitch black backgrounds I hope this communicates isolation, the void of reality, a lack of something as life is always set against this backdrop, things like this, I know people wont always see unless I say, but they see something.

As for the more depicted symbolism such as the halo, the starfish, lightning or electrical energy, I can only guess what they mean to the viewer they are parts of my story? For example my tail is somewhat a symbol to me of shame of human fallibility of difference that I feel, but as I have grown as an artist it to me has also become a symbol of defiance of quite confidence as well as on the more surface level somewhat being a personal question of evil to myself and my struggle with this, its look is designed? In a way to communicate something's after all its not a cat tail, but what seen it means depends on each person, people tell me for example that the electrical energy is about anxiety and they are not wrong in this but, I didn't create or add it for that reason, it is part a symbol of loyalty, of the art sprit, of my essence, a kind of characteristic as well as under this being a tribute.

You’ve said that “art is as much about the artist as the viewer.” How do you navigate that balance between personal narrative and collective resonance? Would you still call it 'art' if no one were watching, or is the viewer's gaze what renders the image transcendent?

I am unsure, I would like to say at my current understanding? There is a lot of weight to the viewers gaze, it gives so much credit and seems to make art, art. But I think that this view misses the element that for viewers to add credit or give weight the art must have caught so many viewers eyes to have the gaze, and what did the piece have to grab that viewer with? Some kind of art quality? There are story's of this, things in the world being hidden and only discovered after the passing of the artist, think extremely famous visionary's like Van Gogh or Franz Kafka. Which suggests that art can be seen but its resonance not understood until 'something' happens?

From my perspective there is a lot to be said for this element in the art, I am unsure if other artists feel the same, I assume I'm like a type of artist. My navigation between the personal narrative and the collective resonance is humble? hopeful? I don't know something close to this. I'm the kind of artist that makes what they want completely and believes I can only ever do that, I am only myself and my brain or mind my observations and ideas, but I hope in the collective resonance sense that I have or will earn the respect of the art community to know I am not here to waste your time. I do not aim to dazzle you with spectacle or make something grand for what I think the audience? Wants, I wouldn't be so blindly bold to assume that I could even understand what that would be no less what it would look like or if I could make it with my ability. I make what matters to me, the things I must make and I hope that some of my work is good enough to have this resonance because it may for me but not for many other people. I have around thirty images, they are just not talked about or known as well and others are lost or never shown, or scrap ideas I'm toying with. In that sense I hope to make more art that resonances with far more people and how to do this or what plan do I have for this, I wouldn't know?.

One of my best works it seems Ethereal Blue from 2015 for me is one of my best I cant say I'm just going to hone some kind of energy because I try with everything artwork some ideas and themes are stronger than others some creation processes go better than others, If I could just create images that had that level of energy or essence I would, I am unsure if I can beat the resonance of Ethereal Blue in its ability to be universal yet deeply personal, because that is not the 1stattempt, but after making it in 2015 I have not attempted to do better or make any other aspects because I want to do those aspects justice also. There is another prominent aspect of Blue, it is a robot, a robot boy, again there are some past attempts but no final image yet.

There’s a striking tension in your statement that the universe is “cold and mechanical” yet humans are “deeply emotional.” Your work seems to orbit this friction. Do you see digital art with its seemingly emotionless tools as a metaphor for this cosmic dissonance, or does the act of creation itself bridge the mechanistic and the spiritual?

There is defiantly a bridge and I think like a few other things its because humans are interacting with the mechanical thing and turning the output into something meaningful, like for example instruments, in the mechanical sense they just make sounds and, the instruments don't even have a particular sound they like they will make any sound in their range you like they don't care, but, music is beautiful. When I was young I would often think what an amazing thing it is to be able to make or control sound, to make music, expression has this almost spiritual element to it. I think there can be a emotionless element more-so in digital art, depending on a few different things one I see is effort or care, a kind of intent. If I was to run some kind of simulation of water using a game engine and printed that on some normal paper home inject printer I would expect some would see that as an insult, where as if someone sculpted or created water by hand drawing it in 3d I think people would have more respect for that work. Its hard to explain, I'm sure high-quality water renders look nice, I know they do, but there is something also about just generating 50 images from one minuet of water animation, and 'passing it off as' art it just seems industrialized so in that sense it can quite easily fall to an emotionless thing, I hope not to fall to this also but then I also think that assumes I will have enough ground to do such a thing, which I can confidently say is not even in the distance of happening but in the future, not to have a crux and just pump out nonsense.

As for my art attempting to show the conflictshion between emotional humans and the uncaring indifference of the universe I understand that my work leans into pain but a large aspect of that as an artist or the body of my work for myself a lot of images are about moments, a kind of visual reflection that I hope is conveyed in its emotion. The universe doesn't care about this? It doesn't see my pain in my work or in my journey externally or internally, but the viewer and by some extension those who credit my work, they see me, they 'witness' me and carry that with them, in the sense of screaming into that void that is careless and me screaming because I feel deeply as many do, some are drawn to my scream.

Unlike many digital artists, you intentionally bypass concerns like poly-count, aspect ratios, or visual fidelity. You’ve described yourself as not working from the same book, just using the same tools. Could you elaborate on the 'rules' you've set for yourself and how those self-imposed limitations shape your artistic language?

Not that they are intensional but I only use Zbrush and Photoshop, I could for example take my 3d model into a different program like Keyshot or Unreal editor and take some image data from there, but I tend to stick to these two programs, I also have the rule? That I can bend things, I am growing into this but because of my training in 3d I focused a lot on things being grounded, perspective for example was always actual where as I can fake it for the shot if it will help and I have some confidence to do these things. Another thing that I'm kind of trying to adjust to is do not spend to much time on things that wont matter, this one is hard and I still make tones of mistakes for example drawing elaborate designs that wont be in the shot or detailed objects to small or far away to be seen at that level, I can only speak for myself but 3d takes a fair amount of time, I don't want to be one of those people who makes like 3 artworks a year so my focus is getting things done but also I don't want them to be rushed, respect is very important to me, this doesn't mean that I'm going to for example use high quality hair for every image that has hair, I aim to put time where it is needed to show what I want.

In 3d there is a polygon count it is like the amount of individual surfaces that make up your 3d object, the higher this number the more detail but also more intensive it is on your hardware. While I still have to take this into account, as I'm not making a thing for a game I don't have to worry so much about how many polygons my 3d models have in the same sense. I still take this into account when constructing my art, there is no point having a high level polygon ball in the back of your image behind a tree, where you could have use those polygons on the leaves of the tree in this way ever image is very technical to start.

While I don't have to worry about the same aspects of visual fidelity this is also very important to me or my work / style from the start to the end this is mostly felt in the sculpting of the 3d space and the painting because I spend so much time making both areas 'fit' hours redrawing a sleeve or trying to balance areas in the paint up that are in very different 3d positions, usually because I have bent the perspective or because I have have isolated an element of the image in the paint up to much and it now doesn't quite fit with the rest of the image. I would say it is one of the most important parts, things have to fit or work the tone and the way the contrasts and colours sit, I at times do two or more repaints from the collection of renders because I just cant get it to work. Other times it works OK but then I see I need to change the perspective more and have to go back to the 3d space and redo everything. But my work for me isn't about technical strength it is about the emotional or artistic strength if its finished and carry's well its done and if it doesn't, though it took hours, I'm only pretending to myself it is finished and I will know forever, I cant really have that so I do my best to hold things.

The transition from commercial commissions to the fine art world is rarely seamless. What internal shifts, philosophically or emotionally, accompanied your journey from CD covers and online showcases to physical exhibitions and institutional recognition?

On the surface its easy, gravity but under its far more complex and unfinished as I'm still learning now and I feel very new.
I am extremely grateful to be in the art community to have as you say institutional recognition, I'm not someone who planed to be an artist, though I am someone who was always creative or struggled with things I just couldn't explain a somewhat troubled child.
The plan was to complete the masters and get a job and get skills and just get better as its your job, then maybe do art. But that didn't happen, so around the job I found I created images in the mind set of I either try now from here or I lose everything and I worked too hard or did so many things I cant not afford to let go and live, so I tried and then I got some credit and some other things happened and I found myself doing digital jobs and digital art, then more things happened and I find myself here.

The gravity of being here to me is immense I am very grateful but also still also seeking to find stable ground, for anyone who thinks well this guy is set up, I don't feel it and this happened when I was doing digital art too, I joined a few websites but a main one that supported me was Creativepool, and I have had a lot of success there for my work that at times when I'm alone I admit I don't understand I have a very high level of cynical rationalism? And so again here I am left somewhat not understanding just as before I believe it is luck or something is happening that I just don't understand and life will 'go back to normal' soon, I would rather that not be the case, because I am more on that side at this moment, very much so.

Emotionally there is still a lot of this can I do this?, I do feel very supported by this community or the orgs that reach out to me and I didn't expect that, I expected a more mechanical or transactional experience, even in the digital space and its not like that, I struggle greatly with the art aspect of art, I want far more ability in both 3d and 2d aspects of my art, while people tell me but you are doing it now just keep doing what your doing, which makes me think it is only me that thinks what I'm doing is not enough, I have some awards and shows and I'm still very much like me in a gallery? Like I haven't been in a few. I am very grateful and hope I can grow, being an artist is a beautiful thing for a human mind, from my perspective it seems people are crediting me on my observations of quite at times personal moments and my ability to show them in a way that carry's some essence of the humanity? of that moment, I am deeply honoured by this.

The Premier Art Prize positions you among a new generation of digital-native artists whose work transcends medium to grapple with urgent emotional and metaphysical questions. How do you feel digital art is evolving in institutional and critical contexts, and where do you see your own practice within this broader art historical arc?

My view of digital arts is limited, I'm learning there are more art digital artists I don't see them all, but for myself I like to think I am helping bring at least introspective digital art where I don't see much of this. But digital art is defiantly evolving I cant speak much for the institutional context though I know industry people are very skilled, I see a lot of renders or even surreal dreamlike pretty things and less though provoking art, but critically as more styles and skill levels and individuals come into art from the digital space hopefully art will be better for it, and I say that because, there are many talented people who make pretty things that may not be questioning but I would say are still art rather than a digital render or a generated artwork and this is good, but there is a chance that more generated work or render like art will seep its way into art, and I do fear this again for example sales of landscapes or abstract environments art in the traditional space, I feel strongly that I could use a game engine to make environment art, as long as I kept peoples distance they probably wouldn't know it was a game engine that did the heavy lifting and that would be bad, this person would be able to crank out images and may be quite successful doing so until found out, which would damage the credibility of everyone in the digital art space trying to make the transition, because how many viewers in this space really even know how I do what I'm doing, I assume most don't know what Zbrush is or that I build from spheres and squares as base shapes.

For myself and at least what I hope I'm doing is bringing some legitimacy to digital art especially 3d digital art, I am aware that I have a very particular framing I don't make sprawling environments I make individual set things the camera placement is not a second thought it is central, the perspective the themes and tone of the image and colours many by hand elements, I hope to show that I care that I have great respect for my credits and perceived position. For me the definition of respect is difficult to define but do I hope I show respect to the art world and how art is made no matter the medium and that if you respect this you will be accepted. Naturally you have to have some talent and something to say also even if that is I like surreal tower blocks illuminated by intense colours contrasted against a bleak outlook in the environment.... go make it, but I don't want to see render 46 of beach scene 0217-b, 80x80 inch, digital, and you have sixty thousand of these or make like 20 a day.

You've spoken with humility about your creative process, estimating that only 10 percent of your work may ever be 'great.' What does greatness mean to you? Is it about technical innovation, emotional authenticity, cultural relevance, or something else entirely?

Great for me is something where I really like the work, I feel it, is strong in colour and theme, I have managed to capture and balance the elements well enough in the 3d phase and 2d phase and captured the essence very well this is usually a tension that is lifted I kind of feel it. At this point, I have created something great for me, but it needs to do well and I don't mean oh people like the work or it has to win an award, it has to have a strong resonance. There are images I make that are strong to me but are weak to the community, there are works where I fail to much at one or more of the creation aspects of great work, it is sadly mostly the balance of colour and tone in the 2d paint up, or I would not have captured enough of the essence of the work to do it justice and there are levels to this, you don't just create one hundred percent amazing or absolute zero percent justice to the work, its like a fight. I see art like a battle against the frustration of making art, its not easy, at least for me I'm not sitting at home doing these things in hours, they take weeks to months most of the time.

For myself innovation does matter but more in an artistic sense I'm new to this and learning it as I understand it more, I have one technical work that is I would say from a 3d sculpting process ability and technical understanding is better than most of my other works it is called Venom Spawn, it is a image of spawn with the venom symbiote very technical 3d capability stuff, the art community I wouldn't expect understand the technicality of what I have done. There is another image called The Hands That Lift Me, again very technical compared to my usual because of the amount of elements and strong balancing this work has done better though it is far less skill technically it more time intense, where as Be Brave I hear is also a very strong work and I believe this is because of my use of colour and framing to communicate intensity or resonant essence and that image took far far less time.

I just want to say on my perceived humility of 10 percent, which is very kind.
I am under no illusion that everything I will create will be good I have around 30 images I believe, I can show you what I would consider to be weaker works, there are not many but still they exist, I tend not to show works that are too bad again I want to respect your time, but also I don't have a testing ground just poorly executed ideas, and because I know they exist I accept that not everything will be good. I feel that there are around 3-5 works that the art community feels are really strong, curator and such see them and contact me, I feel I have around 10-20 strong and there are 5 that for me are not quite there, the thing is I also know that some people like those works and that's good but I look at them and think I must do better with that idea. Not because I know I can, because I feel it is out there, images like The Persecution Principal or Medicine come to mind and they are good ideas and images, but they are on the lower percent because I feel there is a stronger 3d idea to communicate this or the paint up or perspective is not quit right, I can confidently say Medicine for example the perspective is needs to be more intense the drawing needs to be more intense but the colour and framing are almost perfect, the colour with the sunlight is very strong, and people may not even like that part but that tone and look is very important to its theme. The pills in that image are slightly of balance with the rest of the image, this is absolutely purposeful and if you cant see the more clean plasticity 'sanitized' look of the pills unaffected by the sunlight or reality, you are missing the meaning, but free to do so, which is why the sunlight as it is works it has this holiday beach feel to it, I hope people see that.

AI has become a divisive topic within digital art. Your perspective is notably generous, suggesting that AI lacks selfhood but offers access and empowerment. Could you expand on your views regarding the ethical and creative implications of AI in the digital arts, especially in relation to identity, authorship, and emotional sincerity?

For now we are at a stage where AI is giving people who lack ability with respect to these people and giving them a chance to make stuff as someone who uses computers and programs myself I get a lot of questions about the difference and simply for the sake of explanation I am drawing in 3d and 2d space where as 'generator artists?' are asking the computer to do most or all of that for them. Creatively regarding identity the AI is still a tool, without a selfhood it is not creating from its being, it is not yet a being so the identity of the art or the art work is mostly in the hands of the generator artist who prompted it. The AI is helping the person in the creation of the image so is supporting in the authorship and ultimately has a lot of say in the nuance and fine tune of the style because it is drawing it, a kind of bigger ears, how big? Issue. The computer is going to ultimately decide because the person doesn't have that much control.

I'm not a big fan of generator art so as for emotional sincerity I don't think there is much again I haven't seen all generator but there is something about using text as a system to create an image rather than an image system or drawing system, I'm just talking to a computer it seems to me, again with respect to these people because the idea may be very good the tweaking or iteration of the computers image outputs may be very good, but who is doing the process? The ground work? There is a lot of skills and study that is involved that is just skipped but there are other signs that are noticed because of this one for me is that many lack creativity, it seems there are set styles that are just copied defined as the popular, this is where I feel the area is lacking weight, I don't think people can really claim much identity to there generated works especially because most of the models are trained on the data of other artists and here is where the main issue of digital artists and AI artists is, because AI isn't trained to draw, it is trained to generate from images it was given that were created by other people, so the base of AI no matter how advanced it becomes ultimately came from the work of artists, in the same way that medical robots are good because of the study, knowledge, understanding and support of actual doctors.

In the future maybe? Hopefully AI will gain a self, a mind of its own and we will still be here in some form as we are, in this state the AI is like an individual but it is not a human, and unlike animals that can paint an AI has an advance mind, I can't imagine that there would be no depth in it's expression. For example if you asked it to paint things it wanted in the frame of classical paintings the AI would paint things in its own style or create some styles that resonate with humans, it would paint things, its art it would surly carry a emotional sincerity that we as humans would be fascinated with.

Your work is steeped in the tension between solitude and connection, often capturing the moment just before or just after an emotional event. In a world increasingly mediated by screens and synthetic interactions, what role do you think art plays in restoring a sense of human truth, even when that truth is rendered digitally?

To me art is extremely good at reminding humans of their humanity, instances of the power of the human sprit, even in just human connection, of the emotions of existence. These can be shown digitally and in our increasing digital age they may have to be like a paintbrush or a pen for a writer it will be a tool, I think what mater is is being genuine and what is being created. There was a time where AI was used to generate heart felt imagery asking for interactions on social media. This may be some what effective in interaction but I believe most people can tell that the human moment shown in the post is not real. In contrast to this there is endless amounts of media showing moments of connection, family's, pets with children, goodbye videos from hospital with loved ones and people connect with these things though they know nothing about the people or the situation.

Art captures this humanity or strives to and to me by extension connection as humanity is a shared thing, I truly believe the human sprit or that element of humanity is unstoppable because it focuses on the authenticity of the emotional state in contrast to reality's moment and we live in a world that discredits this, art and creativity are very good at restoring the gravity and importance of emotions and humanity. I would ask you to think of a popular yet powerful collective media, these examples are unique and precise but they are there. For example there is a particular song in the Cyberpunk edge runners animation series, if you have seen it you know what it is, why do you know I haven't said anything? Why are films like Home Alone and Artificial Intelligence so popular, in both examples the premise we know is fake, but the humanity is far far to overwhelming. As for digital media there are many popular films with many popular songs just the same that I don't know. I think, the art of a minion, from the film Despicable Me, children love them their entire essence and they are completely digital, we are in a beautiful position to create unimaginable wonder as digital is unbound by the rules of reality I again think Avatar or Annihilation.

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Tatyana Palchuk