Ash Lieb

Ash Lieb (August 22, 1982) is an Australian artist, writer and comedian, known for his absurd surreal humour and art.

Health

In 1994, Lieb contracted a debilitating illness which lasted into his first year of high school at Damascus College Ballarat. In 1995, a tumour pressing on his spinal cord was discovered and removed at Melbourne's Royal Children's Hospital.

Lieb's vision progressively deteriorated at the age of nineteen, and he began to suffer from paranoia, anxiety and headaches. In the summer of 2003, it was discovered that these issues were brought on by an aggressive clear cell meningioma. Despite the favorable conditions of the surgery he underwent to have the tumour removed, Lieb required further surgery and radiation therapy in 2007, whilst studying the final year of his visual arts degree in digital art at Ballarat University.

Career

Lieb held his first solo exhibit, "Old Shoe", in July 1991, at the Ballarat Civic hall site at the age of eight. By age eleven Lieb had held a total of five solo exhibitions.

Lieb started writing jokes in his final year of high school in 2000 and after writing jokes for almost a decade Lieb performed on stage for the first time while living in Brisbane in 2009. The following year, after he returned to Ballarat, Lieb performed his surreal humor and one-liners at the Geelong Performing Arts Centre and Fitzroy's Evelyn Hotel. A year later, after numerous exhibitions of drawings and paintings, Lieb exhibited his digital artworks for the first time in his solo exhibition, "The Meaning of Life", in April 2011, in a small Ballarat gallery. In 2012 Ash Lieb was named as one of the city of Ballarat's 40 people under 40. Lieb's books can be found on every populated continent of the world, with stores holding them in more than fifteen countries.

Art

Lieb's art and comedy style deals in the absurd. While one part deals with the laughter, nonsense and ridicule of absurdity or surreal humour, the other deals with the philosophical definition of absurdism regarding the conflict between pursuing the meaning of life and the inability to find it. Lieb's digital works were initially inspired by artists such as Woody Allen and Andy Warhol. His style consists of complex pop surrealism digital montages using photographs and images. Examples of themes in his works include a recurring milk carton, medical stitches, and corporate brand names.

Bibliography

• The Secret Well (1998)
• The Technicolor Transgressions of the Blue Rose (2003)
• Funny Guy (2013)