Ashley Bess is an artist and designer whose work explores how objects become vessels for memory, identity, and personal history.

Originally trained at Parsons School of Design and shaped by more than a decade working in footwear and accessories design, Bess approaches objects as vessels of personal history. Through molded leather impressions, her work investigates how everyday possessions become carriers of memory, holding traces of the people, places, rituals, and experiences attached to them.

Drawing from inherited belongings, personal archives, and found artifacts, BESS transforms familiar objects into physical records of remembrance.

She currently lives and works in Chicago.