Ashlin McAndrew is a visual artist whose practice explores the fractured relationship between national identity, technological progress, and the natural world. With an academic background from Central Saint Martins and Vanderbilt University, McAndrew integrates her training as a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner into her work, investigating the fractures that alienate us from our bodies, our communities, and the Earth.
Her latest artistic work is dedicated to the radical repurposing of contemporary civilization's waste—discarded plastic plants, decommissioned fire hoses, and obsolete electronics. By applying traditional craft techniques such as quilting, wrapping, and hand-sewing to these industrial materials, she creates a tension between methods rooted in cultural memory and materials born of industrial amnesia. A central motif in her current collection is the plastic plant: an artificial reproduction of life, created by a culture that simultaneously fears nature. The rendering of American symbols such as flags and maps from waste products reflects a nation that has become what it consumes—synthetic, fragmented, and increasingly unable to bear the weight of its own contradictions.
McAndrew's career is characterized by a profound material investigation and a resistance to throwaway culture. Her work has been exhibited internationally, with significant upcoming presentations at the Arte Laguna Prize at Arsenale Nord in Venice and the CICA Museum in South Korea. Through a process of "deep listening" to found objects, McAndrew seeks to create small counterpoints to technocracy and to make space for beauty, connection, and the lost art of the handmade.