Behind The Scenes of Hazel Ashe's Recent 'No Two Waves' Solo Show
We met Hazel Ashe on Castle Beach in Falmouth to take you behind the scenes of her latest collection 'No Two Waves'. Ashe’s collection brings together twenty-four oil paintings of varying scale, united by an attentive study of light, movement and atmosphere along the Cornish coast.
Inspired by the depth of colour found in winter skies and the first signs of spring, the works move between vivid sunrise and fading dusk, capturing fleeting moments that feel both immediate and enduring. Through layered colour and shifting tone, Hazel explores what she describes as an 'emotional connection to place', transforming familiar coastal scenes into paintings that feel both intimate and expansive.
It was a joy to meet with Hazel on location and watch her work in situ. While setting up, Hazel spoke fondly of the environment and the Cornish landscape. Born and raised in Cornwall, where her family has lived for over five generations, Hazel’s relationship to the landscape is deeply rooted, this affiliation to her home is clear in her craft. Her practice centres around the interaction between sea, sky and rock formations, often drawing inspiration from locations such as Dollar cove and Kynance Cove on the Lizard, Sennen and Portreath.
Hazel’s easel was carefully weighed down against the coastal wind, a wooden board balanced in place rather than a traditional canvas. This choice, Hazel explained, is entirely intentional. For her, texture and movement within a painting must feel consciously placed rather than inherited from the surface itself. Hazel spoke mindfully of her depiction of the water, ensuring precise paint placement which allows her to capture those specific fleeting moments where light touches the water. The board allows her complete control over where depth, gesture and texture emerge within the work. Resulting in her signature representational style.
Beside her lay a large wooden palette with paint arranged in a spectrum: yellows, oranges, pinks, purples, greens and blues laid out in careful sequences, accompanied by separate brushes for each colour to avoid what Hazel described as 'paint soup'. Watching her mix, place and layer colour revealed just how deeply she considers tonal relationships within the landscape.
Watching Hazel paint en plein air revealed the ability to directly observe the landscape to inform works develop in the studio. For Hazel, inspiration comes from impressionist movements, specifically works of Claude Monet; favouring changing natural light, colour and atmosphere. Using layered paint and impasto techniques, she builds depth selectively, allowing brushstrokes and texture to emerge only where needed, fascinated by the interaction of colour, Hazel works intuitively to find what she calls the 'middle colour' - those subtle transitions that suggest atmosphere rather than simply describe it.
As we spoke, Hazel reflected on the challenge of painting the sky and sea, describing them not as fixed forms but as something constantly shifting and intangible. 'The sky is not something you can hold,' she said, 'it’s particles of light'. That understanding feels central to the collection. Rather than documenting the coastline literally, the paintings capture sensations: the warmth within transparent greens of a wave, the heaviness before a storm, or the brief intensity of light at dusk.
The collection began, fittingly, with a moment of spontaneity. Hazel recalled watching a wave rise dramatically before crashing against the shoreline on Kynance Cove. 'And this wave just did a crazy thing,' she remembered, 'and I thought, "you show off".' That moment became Show Off, the first painting in the series and, in many ways, set the tone for the works that followed paintings grounded in the immediacy of observation yet driven equally by emotion, memory and instinct.
'I had been hitting the beach through winter, and such a joy about winter is the abundance of colour in the sky through sunrise at dawn and sunsets at dusk, a few lovely storms which I know others wouldn’t describe as lovely, but I am captivated by the swell and movement – I spent days in the landscape capturing those moments'.
There is a quiet immersion within Hazel Ashe’s work. Each piece carries a sense of lived experience and considered remembrance of the landscape. The invites the viewer into Hazel’s experience of it; finding poetry in shifting weather, movement and colour, and preserving moments that might otherwise disappear as quickly as the changing light itself.