Claire Ashley interview – ‘I’m not an artist who is scared about the word entertainment’

Ashley makes vast colourful, oddball inflatables. She talks about giving life to these characters, taking up space, and allowing humour and entertainment as access points to her art.
“Humour and absurdity are really important in my work,” says the artist Claire Ashley. That much is joyfully apparent when watching a video clip of her 2012 work Ruddy Udder Dance, which entailed a troupe of dancers with only their legs visible, as they teetered across a field, high kicking to a perky country and western song, while balancing a giant, inflatable “cow” above their waists (a performance developed with the Happy Collaborationists at Acre in Steuben, Wisconsin).
Interview by VERONICA SIMPSON