Dean Ashby Arts

Philip Dean Ashby was born in 1954 in Bedford at the ´Wait for the Wagon´ public house now called the Blarney Stone.

From an early age Philip was interested in art and was encouraged to develop his creativity focusing on pencil, charcoal and Indian Ink drawings. After attending Art College he became liberated from these restrictions and started experimenting using other mediums, playing with colours and texture.

Influenced by wildlife and the natural world, Philip especially likes the effects gained by using Pastel, producing work that gives a surreal effect, achieved by using heavy shadows together with night landscapes.

Viewings available

Philip exhibits his work in the Eagle Gallery in Castle Road Bedford, and has also taken part in a number of Open Studios and Artist Network events.

For the last 6 years Philip has had work selected for the Mall Galleries Pastel Exhibition, winning the Easel Award in 2007, together with selling his work. He have won several art prizes at the Luton Open Art Exhibition in recent years and one of his pictures (‘Legend of the Deep’) was voted by visitors as the best picture in the gallery.
At the age of sixteen Philip had an Owl drawing illustrated in ‘Bird Life’ an R.S.P.B magazine, and he sold his first picture at the age of nineteen.

Philip ran a Bird hospital from 1979 to 1989, which took in over 500 birds in one year, this resulted in two television appearances. The injured birds and wildlife proved to be an ideal subject matter for his work.
He is presently a specialist Art and Design Teacher at Polam Oaks School in Bedford, also selling his work in Britain and abroad through Exhibitions and the Internet.