What the Living Carry

Born and raised in Free Union, Virginia, Morgan Ashcom chisels his work out of the rural Americana of Hoys Fork – an amalgamated fiction of a small town, nestled in the South. Influenced by memories of his Shenandoah upbringing and deeply rooted in southern literature, Ashcom depicts landscapes obscured by climbing vines and dying brush, while everyday subjects perform menial tasks amongst their dated surroundings. Much like Faulkner’s mythical Mississippi-inspired county, Yoknapatawpha, Ashcom has constructed a place galvanized by the past – its resoluteness, and its refusal to be tied down or easily consumed.

Through a collection of hand-typed letters written by ‘Morgan,’ requesting a DNA analysis from a certain ‘Eugene’ at the ‘Center of Epigenetics and Wellness of the Spirit,’ What the Living Carry chronicles a quest for understanding. By weaving together fragments of the living with this murky, shadowed past, Ashcom’s reality provides a prompt to mythicize one’s own memories through the lens of Hoys Fork.

Ashcom holds an MFA from the University of Hartford and currently lives and works in Charlottesville, Virginia. His work has been exhibited and published both nationally, internationally, and has won numerous awards including: Center’s Choice Awards, the German Photobook Award, and Center for Photography at Woodstock’s Photography Now Purchase Prize. Ashcom has been an artist in residence at Light Work and has taught photography at Western Connecticut State University, Ithaca College, University of Hartford, Cornell University, and the University of Virginia.