VCA2025

Ash Milne

Advanced Diploma
2025

Ash Milne is a queer and disabled multidisciplinary artist specializing in work that explores themes of identity, self-acceptance, and queer joy. Through a mix of bold, high-contrast paintings and lifelike sculptures, Ash challenges societal norms and advocates for visibility of marginalized identities. They rebel against typical trans narratives which focus on suffering, instead focusing on the love, beauty, joy, and care that surround being trans. They primarily work with the body, both internally and externally, showing intimate and hidden parts of life. After graduating Sheridan, Ash is using their art to normalize queer and disabled bodies and build community.

Instagram: @s0ur.gh0st

(T4T 1) You Make Me Feel Heard

(T4T 1) You Make Me Feel Heard

by Ash Milne

Dyeing and cutting hair has always been a loving act I can give my friends and partners, as getting your hair cut as a queer or trans person isn’t always easy. This is a special part of Queer friendships for me that truly shows the care we put into one another. Knowing I have people there for me in the same ways I’m there for them has completely changed my life - it makes me feel seen and listened to.

(T4T 2) You Make Me Feel Loved

(T4T 2) You Make Me Feel Loved

by Ash Milne

This painting is of me and my two partners, both of whom are incredibly important to me. I love being T4T and surrounding myself with other trans people. This has been integral to my transition and has filled my life with so much love and joy.

(T4T 3) You Make Me Feel Safe

(T4T 3) You Make Me Feel Safe

by Ash Milne

Being surrounded by other trans and queer people has always felt like a safety net. Queer areas let me be myself without the worry in the back of my mind. I love being part of my community and I find it’s the most beautiful aspects to being trans.

Arthritic Decay

Arthritic Decay

by Ash Milne

One of my biggest fears as someone with Rheumatoid Arthritis is how I will function as my condition potentially worsens. There’s a chance my hands get too bad to use, and that my eyes stop working. As an artist, this is my biggest worry. I find myself wondering how it will impact my ability to create.

Big Eared Bat

Big Eared Bat

by Ash Milne

A study of a big-eared brown bat. Bats often get seen as pests, but they are incredibly important for our environment. I wanted to show how interesting these creatures are as most people never see them up close.

Carousel

Carousel

by Ash Milne

Sometimes my brain turns into a Carousel, constantly cycling through emotions too quick to register or process. Everything turns into a blur as I flip flop between states without clear reasoning. The ride is a little scary, but it’s allowed me to feel.

Growth

Growth

by Ash Milne

Going on Testosterone and getting top surgery significantly changed my relationship with my body. I love how I've changed both physically and emotionally as I've grown into myself. There is so much beauty within being trans, and so many of these aspects are looked over. Just as I've had hair growth and bottom growth on T, I've also grown in my love for being trans and loving other trans people. This painting is a celebration of queer bodies, letting them exist in a non-sexual light.

Hidden Layers

Hidden Layers

by Ash Milne

This triptych peels back the layers of invisible chronic illnesses to show the pain beneath the surface. As a young person with chronic pain I am often dismissed and not believed, just because the symptoms aren’t visible. Each Layer represents different peoples' awareness towards what I feel (strangers, friends, and finally myself).

Magazines, chalk pastel, melted crayons, acrylic ink and paint

Hollow Child

Hollow Child

by Ash Milne

I feel like I’m a completely different person from who I was as a kid. I don’t remember much of being a kid either, so I just experience my childhood through stories and photos. It makes childhood me feel empty and fake, something I also felt at the time due to growing up undiagnosed autistic. This work is about that dissociation paired with the feeling of being nonhuman, an experience most autistic children have.

Melted crayons, tinfoil

Labour of Love

Labour of Love

by Ash Milne

As a disabled artist, I have a constant struggle between wanting to create and needing rest. My passion for creating causes me to flare up which can last days. This is incredibly frustrating. I wanted to show the self-sacrifice that sometimes accompanies love, and the destruction that can come with passion.

Melted Crayons, Eggshell, Ink

76 x 38, 25 x 25 each

Monster

Monster

by Ash Milne

Being a young Trans person, a lot of fear is directed towards me, specifically from parents thinking I want to indoctrinate their children. I’ve been talked about like I’m a monster or have been mutilated, and their worst fear is that their kid ends up like me. No matter how they feel about me as a person, all they can see is my transness. This especially comes from those with trans kids, which is quite ironic as they end up being the cruel one. I wanted to depict myself in this role that’s been pushed on me, a swamp monster luring others in.

On Display

On Display

by Ash Milne

Living with someone for the first time made me lose the ability to hide my mental illness. I’ve always struggled opening up so most things would fly under the radar. Finally having that part of me seen was vulnerable yet validating and rewarding. I thought having the worst parts of me exposed outside of my control would ruin how others saw me, but nothing changed. It actually ended up being my first step to regrowth.

Our Seeds Will Grow Again

Our Seeds Will Grow Again

by Ash Milne

With everything happening in the world right now regarding queer people, I try to remind myself how our rights cycle throughout history. We’ve existed forever and even with effort to change and erase that we have always bounced back from loss. No matter what happens, queer people can’t be eradicated.

Pearly Gates

Pearly Gates

by Ash Milne

For this piece I wanted to put trans bodies in a space they are typically excluded from and show them with the same grace we do for cis bodies. Trans bodies tend to be deemed as “pornographic” when they're really the same as any other body.

Reliant

Reliant

by Ash Milne

My relationship with medication has always been tricky. My arthritis meds are what keep me functioning, but needing to be on them is frustrating. I’ve been on injections for over 5 years, dealing with all kinds of inconveniences. I don’t want to be on medication, but I know that I need it. My meds are the best thing to happen to me, I just wish I wasn’t reliant on them.

Rodent bones, medical needle, thread

Twice as Many Stars

Twice as Many Stars

by Ash Milne

I seem to always find myself wanting to separate certain aspects of myself since I tend to categorize parts of myself as purely good or bad. I feel the need to leave parts of myself in the shadows, but they are still a part of me. I’m learning to embrace these aspects of myself, allowing me to become more balanced.

You Don't Exist

You Don't Exist

by Ash Milne

Under the Trump administration trans people have had their documents destroyed, go missing, or have been unable to renew them. A lot of documents are now invalid due to gender laws which can remove access to travel, voting, finances, and more. Since there was a vague executive order to only recognize two sex’s and ban gender marker changes, many passports and identification sent in for this change are stuck in limbo. This ability to remove people they disagree with and toy with legal documents extends past trans people. These types of orders will always expand to more and more groups of people, even those who may feel like they are unaffected.

Paper and thread