Ashton Phillips is a socially and ecologically-engaged artist and writer focused on the plasticity of bodies, the transness of matter, and the poetics of impurity, mutual contamination, and mass extinction/survival. His practice prioritizes collaboration, experimental play, speculative (un)making, and embodied research over linear inquiry, hierarchical methods, or stable results. He is particularly interested in the power dynamics of looking, listening, and performing across species, language systems, and other forms of difference. His most recent work experiments with modes of collective listening and speaking as methods for resisting erasure and strengthening ecosystems of resilience in fascist times. 

Ashton grew up in “Chemical Valley” West Virginia, sharing water, ground, and sky with legions of forever chemicals spewing from nearby plastic plants and coal mines. Today, he is a resident artist at Angels Gate Cultural Center, where he cares for a colony of polystyrene-metabolizing mealworm/beetles and a plastic-fertilized garden as trans ecological praxis. When he is not (un)making with these shapeshifting creatures, he teaches about trauma-informed care, posthuman praxis, and creative action at Otis College of Art and Design.

Ashton’s research-based work has been shown across the US and abroad, including recent solo exhibitions, collaborative projects, performances, and public art commissions at Human Resources, LA; 2220 Arts + Archives; Tiger Strikes Asteroid, LA; MaryTwo Gallery, Switzerland; Ely Center for Contemporary Art, New Haven, CT; The Audubon Center at Debs Park, LA; Pieterson Performance Space, LA; Angels Gate Cultural Center; the Torrance Art Museum; Persons Unknown Gallery; Automata Arts; Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook; the Rose Garden at Exposition Park; Maryland Institute College of Art; and Glendale Central Park. 

He holds an MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art; a JD from the George Washington University Law School; and a BA in Anthropology from the University of Maryland. His creative and critical writing have been published by Trans Studies Quarterly; Antennae - The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture; Contemporary Art Review Los Angeles;  and Cambridge University Press. 

His work has been supported by the Foundation for Contemporary Arts; the Los Angeles County Department of Cultural Affairs; the One Institute; the Blade of Grass Foundation; Arts United San Pedro; the City of Glendale; Synchromy Music; Heidi Duckler Dance; Angels Gate Cultural Center; Automata Arts; and Human Resources, Los Angeles.