Ashley Bickerton, honest without flinching about her work and her illness

Last words (and works) of the artist diagnosed with ALS in 2021. An avid surfer, he chose to live remotely in Bali, far from the buzz. He found it anyway.

"I can't think of another artist who was both brilliant on canvas and on a surfboard", said said Paul Theroux, the writer. He was talking about one of the artists he most admired, Ashley Bickerton, and these words from Theroux inspired me to plan a trip to his house: "If Gauguin had caught waves in Tahiti, I think we would have a relevant comparison. ”

Ashley rose to prominence in the mid-1980s with ironic, abstract constructions that focused on ideas of consumption, identity, and value. He had been diagnosed with ALS in 2021, and in July, when I finally visited him in Bali, he needed help getting food to his mouth and he couldn't paint anymore. But there wasn't an ounce of self-pity. "I consider myself extremely lucky," the artist said from his electric wheelchair. "It's an incredible luxury to be able to sit here on my big veranda on the hill overlooking the Indian Ocean, spend time with my wife and daughter, work on my computer, think, dream and put some energy into it. order in my life."

He was brave, graceful, eloquent, inspired. And full of gallows humor. After a Thai feast at his sprawling resort at the southern tip of Bali, I gestured to his wife and three-year-old daughter, who were playing on the sofa, his paintings and sculptures surrounding us, his swimming pool and his spectacular view on the ocean, and said, "What a beautiful life you've made for yourself." With a rosy-cheeked smile, he said, "What's left of it."

Ashley passed away on November 30. He was 63 years old.

Image "Extradition With Computer", 2006, C-Print. After moving to Bali, Bickerton adopted a more figurative style that incorporated hyperrealism, exoticism, and sexuality. a complement to his putting his affairs in order. We met in the early afternoon in his office crow's nest. Sitting at his desk, often sipping a Coke through a straw, he enthusiastically showed me the fantastic waves he was building in Photoshop (a devout surfer, ALS had deprived him of his daily dose). From there, we would move on to more important things – his biography, his work, his family. He did not want to go into the details of his diagnosis. His face lit up when he talked about the paintings he was doing for his upcoming exhibition in New York.

"I had two major exhibitions in New York. York earlier this year," he told me. “My whole plan was to throw everything I had in there, then come back here and quietly rot and die on my hill. Then Larry Gagosian stepped in and ruined all my plans. »

He was referring to his recent good news. Gagosian had picked it up, scheduling his first solo exhibition with the gallery in 2023. The announcement created buzz in the art world: “Over the past few years, Bickerton has come full circle in his practice, synthesizing his heterogeneous modes and gestures in a whole. - an all-encompassing visual language.

“It was exhilarating and very well received,” Ashley said. "But I suddenly realized that I...