Ashcan 2025

AshCan 2025

Featuring work from across the last few years, AshCan 2025 is a zine collection of art, essay and poetry from digital artist and writer, Ashby Daugherty.

This digital version of the zine contains ten interior pages, with projects dating from 2017 through 2025 — from the stuff he was drawing by finger on his cell phone screen (Ohio Summer, 2021), to the newer, more polished work he’s made as he’s improved his toolset. There’s poems (with new illustrations), digital prints, an illustrated film review, and a page with some featured videos worth checking out — his digital art style carries through into his video production, where most of the compositing assets are hand-drawn and, occasionally, animated.

About the Artist

Hey! I’m Ashby Daugherty — a digital artist and writer creating weird art, poetry, reviews, videos, zines, games, and web experiments. My work digs into eclectic pop culture detritus and the emotional textures of mundane spaces — the awe of the horizon stretching across a freshwater sea, the unraveling of reality after an hour and a half trapped in the Rally’s drive-thru, the way Ohio freeway signs stitch themselves into the landscape, or simply how it would be so cool if Lady Gaga rocked an H.R. Giger-inspired look.

I’ve developed generative poetry bots for twitter, coded explorative text-based games, been an editor for both literary magazines and independent zine projects, and produced short-form video essays exploring overlooked and strange corners of popular culture.

I’ve got a B.A. in Creative Writing with a focus in Poetry from Wright State University and currently work for a unionized, independent, nonprofit cinema in Columbus, Ohio.

Check me out and follow my work on twitter, tiktok, instagram, and letterboxd!