Visual artist Ashely Marshall draws upon her family's Hungarian heritage to express her culture in a unique way - through a combination of dance and ceramics. "The idea is to capture a dance step in clay, as if it has been frozen in time. The steps are layered and appear fragmented, showing the loss or separation I feel from Hungarian culture," says Marshall.

Marshall grew up surrounded by her grandparents' Hungarian culture - language, food and family traditions. For more than 20 years, she was involved in Hungarian folk dance and the Regina Hungarian community. Recently, however, she has had to walk away from dance to follow her other artistic pursuits.

In summer 2014, Marshall traveled to Hungary to participate in an artist residency at the Kecskemét International Ceramic Residency. Through that experience, she came up with the idea for the innovative dance/ceramic combination. "For me, it's a very easy hybrid for art, because they're two separate mediums, but they both had a very strong influence in my life. In this piece, there's no visual of the dance, no person doing the performative part of dance. It breaks it down to very specific elements of dance that lead you up to the performance," she says.

The ceramic works also incorporate embroidery, choreography from three dances she learned during the time she participated in Hungarian dance, floral pattern stamps, and folk song lyrics. She says the embroidery is loose because, "it's never finished. It's showing that lack of connection with my culture, the idea of not being able to fully connect because I'm second generation Canadian. It's getting further and further away from me," she says.

Marshall received an Independent Artists grant to explore the project at the Medalta International Residency Program in Medicine Hat, Alberta, in summer 2015. She learned soda and salt ceramic firing techniques there and appreciated getting feedback on her work from other artists.

"I had never done physical movement on clay before. I definitely want to explore it more and take part in another residency," she says. "Getting the support from the Arts Board was amazing and extremely helpful. It's great that they give this opportunity to artists."

Front page:

Ashely Marshall
Valaszuti (detail), 2015
Ceramic, salt fired, ribbon, ceramic decals, embroidery

Top:

Ashely Marshall
Magyarbodi, 2015
Ceramic, soda fired, ribbon, ceramic decals, embroidery

Middle and bottom:

Ashely Marshall
Kalocsai (detail), 2015
Ceramic, soda fired, ribbon, ceramic decals, embroidery

Photos courtesy of the artist.