Cloud Forest 12_27_20
Ash Ferlito, 2020
Inkjet print on transparency, UV led
Ash Ferlito's practice crosses the boundaries between traditional categories of painting, printmaking, photography, and sculpture. She works mostly out of doors, directly with elements of the natural world. She focuses on biodiversity exemplified in several projects, one inspired by the activity of 'mothing' - or attracting moths with light for observation.
Ash uses the framework of 'mothing' to make a series of cyanotype and photographic prints. Using UV light, she lures insects to land on a gridded sheet and photographs the moths and other insects as they write over the session. Each night is different, all the variables, such as fluctuations in weather, location, lunar phase, to name a few, make for a dazzling and surprising event from the moment she turns on the light.
For this 5th edition of Citygroup Bulletin, Ash composed a light box made of several layers of printed transparent images made during a mothing session in cloud forest habitat at the Yanayacu Biological Research Station in Ecuador.