Ashley Cheeks is a self-taught taxidermist from Augusta, Georgia. Though born in the city, Ashley spent most of her weekends exploring her grandmother’s farm. She would collect small bones, rocks, and plants to show her grandmother, and fabricate stories about how they were gifts from the creatures in the woods.
In 2013, she enrolled in the Valdosta State University art program, with myths and legends as her artistic inspiration. Around the same time, she started collecting taxidermy, and learned how to do her own processing to salvage roadkill and collect her own specimens. It reminded her of how much she loved nature, and collecting natural objects like she did in the past. The satisfaction of taking an animal that would otherwise waste away and give it a new sense of life drove her to create the creatures of legend that inspired her stories with the parts she gathered. She now creates rogue taxidermy sculptures as a dedication to her experiences and inspirations, and runs a blog where she sells her excess furs and bones to other collectors.
After graduation, Ashely will be enrolling in the Custom’s School of Taxidermy in Athens, GA, where she will be attending classes to learn taxidermy at the commercial level. She plans to move out to her grandmother’s farm and continue her work though an online store and local taxidermy shop in the area.
My series Unnatural History is an ode to the supernatural and my connection to paganism. As such, I create rogue taxidermy sculptures that function as monuments and dedications to the creatures I worship. The animal parts included in my pieces are of my own findings and are directly connected to the stories of the creatures illustrated, as well as the stories behind the parts I used.