Ash Lieb

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Ash Lieb
Born (1982-08-22) August 22, 1982 (age 41)
Ballarat, Victoria, Australia[1]
Education Damascus College[2]
Alma mater Ballarat University[3]
Occupation Artist, writer, comedian[4]
Years active 1990–present
Home town Ballarat, Victoria, Australia[5]
Website www.ashlieb.com

Ash Lieb (August 22, 1982) is an Australian artist, writer and comedian, known for his absurd surreal humour and art.[1][4]

History

Old shoe (1990-1996)

Ash Lieb's artistic career began in the July of 1991 at the Ballarat Civic hall site when, at eight years of age, he held his first solo exhibit Old Shoe. The exhibit was composed of delicate drawings and paintings of lost objects and fragments of human forms.[6] By the age of eleven, Lieb had held a total of five solo exhibitions and was involved in countless group exhibitions around Australia, where he was known for his stunningly delicate ability to capture the world around him in pencil, ink and paint.[1][7] In 1994, Lieb contracted a debilitating illness which lasted into his first year of high school at Damascus College. In 1995, a tumour pressing on his spinal cord was discovered and removed at Melbourne's Royal Children's Hospital.[8]

The Secret well and Bleach (1998-2000)

At the age of fifteen in 1998, Ash Lieb wrote his first novel The Secret Well.[9][10] The story, set in the aftermath of the mysterious disappearance and grim discovery of young girl's body, is about a young girl and her mysterious neighbour who soon come to unravel the terrifying secrets around them. Lieb dedicated the story to his childhood friend who had died years earlier.[6] In 1999, at the age of sixteen, Ash Lieb wrote his second novel Bleach over several months while skipping English classes at his high school, which he felt was wasting his time.[8] The story is about an alienated anarchist looking for an escape from the emptiness of high-school, who, after a chance meeting with a girl, is put on a collision course with a fate even his darkest thoughts never imagined.[6] Lieb's books can be found on every populated continent of the world, with stores holding them in more than fifteen countries. [11]

The Technicolor Transgressions of the Blue Rose (2001-2004)

After completing high school, Ash Lieb enrolled in a visual arts degree at Ballarat University. However, by the age of nineteen, he had left the course after his vision began to deteriorate and he began to suffer from headaches and anxiety.[12][13] In the summer of 2003, it was discovered that these issues were brought on by an aggressive clear cell meningioma.[1][14] With an uncertain future, Lieb went on to write his third novel, The Technicolor Transgressions of the Blue Rose, in the weeks leading up to having dangerous brain surgery that he was convinced he wouldn't survive.[10] The Technicolor Transgressions of the Blue Rose is a story about a color blind thief with a fictional form of color blindness, where everything yellow is seen as blue, which was inspired by the artist's own form of red-green color blindness.[15][9] In the story, characters have blue hair, the sun is blue, gold coins are blue, and so on.[9]

The Meaning of Life (2005-2012)

Lieb returned to university in 2005, where he began to create his art in a digital style, combining his previous skills in drawing and painting with photography and other new techniques.[6] However, in 2007, despite the favorable conditions of the surgery he underwent in 2003, Lieb required further surgery and radiation therapy, whilst undertaking the final year of his visual arts degree in digital art.[1] In 2009, having been writing jokes for almost a decade since his final year of high school in 2000, Lieb performed on stage for the first time while living in Brisbane.[13] The following year, having returned to Ballarat, Lieb performed his surreal humor and one-liners at the Geelong Performing Arts Centre and Fitzroy's Evelyn Hotel to mass crowds.[1][11] A year later, having only ever previously exhibited his drawings and paintings, Lieb exhibited his digital artworks for the first time in his solo exhibition The Meaning of Life in April 2011.[16] The imagery in the exhibit was a collection that spawned out of the artist's surreal humor that he credits Woody Allen and Mitch Hedberg for having inspired in his youth, while the title of the exhibit is an allusion to the absurd humor of Monty Python.[8] In 2012, Ash Lieb was honored as one of the city of Ballarat's 40 people under 40, and as a leader in the industry.[4][17]

The Holy Grail (2013-2014)

The beginning of 2013 saw Ash Lieb open his exhibition How not to be seen at a small gallery in the artist's home town of Ballarat. The both humorous and philosophically surreal exhibit dealt with the dual meanings of absurdism.[1][18] A few months later in April, Lieb released his first joke book Funny Guy after more than a decade of writing and performing his absurdist style of humour.[13] In October, Ash Lieb unveiled his exhibition of The Holy Grail. The philosophically absurd exposition dealt with such concepts as the meaning of life, philosophy, existentialism, vision quests and animal spirits.[19] The artist's artwork Weyekin also featured in the Blake Prize for spiritual art Director's Cut exhibition throughout the beginning of 2014.[20][21]

Art

Lieb's art and style of humour deals in the absurd. While one part deals with the laughter, nonsense and ridicule of absurdity or surreal humour, the other deals with the philosophical definition of absurdism regarding the conflict between pursuing the meaning of life and the inability to find it.[1][22][23][11][24] Lieb's digital works were initially inspired by artists such as Woody Allen and Andy Warhol.[16] His style consists of complex pop surrealist digital montages using photographs and images. Examples of themes in his works include a recurring milk carton, medical stitches, and corporate brand names.[1][24][16][25] Lieb is a master of light and shade, and often creates imagery simply to play around with lighting and shadows.[9] Much of the artist's imagery and characters are, to some degree, a recreation of the bizarre imagery that the artist experiences during brief spells of derealisation that occurs during short temporal lobe seizures that first appeared as a result of a brain tumour in the early 2000s. This warped déjà vu dreamlike imagery extends throughout much of the artist’s anthology of creations.[26]

Bibliography

  • The Secret Well (1998)
  • Bleach (1999)
  • The Technicolor Transgressions of the Blue Rose (2003)
  • Funny Guy (2013)[5][13][11]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 Hailey Wood, "It's all about absurdism for Ash" The Courier, Tuesday January 22, 2013 page 17
  2. ↑ Damascus College, The Road, Summer 2010. Retrieved 12 April 2013
  3. ↑ Alicia Thomas, The Courier, http://www.thecourier.com.au/story/3056796/former-university-of-ballarat-graduates-shine-in-new-exhibition/ retrieved 23 January 2016
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Kim Quinlan, "40 under 40 leaders series", The Courier, Wednesday, December 26th 2012 page 4
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Dellaram Vreeland, The Courier, http://www.thecourier.com.au/story/1608882/local-comedian-ash-lieb-launches-book/ retrieved 23 January 2016
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 Adam Greenberg, "The Meaning of Life", Cruel World, 2011 ISBN 978-0-9941546-0-6
  7. ↑ James Willow Jr, "The Holy Grail", Cruel World, December 2013 page 131 ISBN 978-0-9941546-2-0
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Elliott Willow, "The Meaning of Life", Cruel World, 2011 ISBN 978-0-9941546-0-6
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 James Willow Jr, "The Holy Grail", Cruel World, December 2013 page 132 ISBN 978-0-9941546-2-0
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 William S. Guggenheim, "The Holy Grail", Cruel World, December 2013 page 8 ISBN 978-0-9941546-2-0
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 Chloe Biggin, "ASH LIEB", The Courier, Saturday June 29 2013 page 34
  12. ↑ Adam Greenberg, "How not to be seen", Cruel World, January 2013 ISBN 978-0-9941546-1-3
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 13.3 Dellaram Vreeland, "Ash adds a third string to his bow", The Courier, Tuesday July 2nd 2013 page 16
  14. ↑ Hailey Wood, The Courier, Saturday January 26, 2013 page 33
  15. ↑ William S. Guggenheim, "The Holy Grail", Cruel World, December 2013 page 2 ISBN 978-0-9941546-2-0
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 16.2 “Exhibition has youthful appeal” The Courier, Tuesday March 29th 2011 page 12
  17. ↑ Kim Quinlan, The Courier, Wednesday, December 26th 2012, front page
  18. ↑ James Willow jr, "How not to be seen", Cruel World, January 2013 ISBN 978-0-9941546-1-3
  19. ↑ William S. Guggenheim, "The Holy Grail", Cruel World, December 2013 page 6 ISBN 978-0-9941546-2-0
  20. ↑ William S. Guggenheim, "The Holy Grail", Cruel World, December 2013 page 9 ISBN 978-0-9941546-2-0
  21. ↑ The Blake Prize 2013, http://www.blakeprize.com/works/weyekin retrieved 24 January 2016
  22. ↑ Dellaram Vreeland, "Meaning of life explored through art", The Courier, http://www.thecourier.com.au/story/1844599/meaning-of-life-explored-through-art/ retrieved 19 December 2013
  23. ↑ Dellaram Vreeland, "Exploring the world and the heavens", The Courier, Tuesday October 15, 2013, pg17
  24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 Jack Pilven, "Local artists take a look at time factor", The Courier, Tuesday July 6, 2010 page 12
  25. ↑ Harry Brumpton, The Courier-Mail, http://www.couriermail.com.au/ipad/a-creative-outlet-for-ill-artists/story-fn6ck8la-1226354082240 retrieved 13 April 2013
  26. ↑ James Willow Jr, "The Holy Grail", Cruel World, December 2013 page 133 ISBN 978-0-9941546-2-0
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