Meet the artist: ashley ann art
My artistic style began in high school, developed throughout college, and refined itself in my mid-late twenties. Now, I feel confident enough in it to explore it more by sharing it with the world and with all of you.
THE BEGINNING
When I first started painting, I struggled with blending. Others in my class were able to use acrylic paint to get those soft, subtle, blended lines in their paintings. Something clicked one day when I began to use more paint, and instead of blending the textures away letting them stay on the canvas. This was during my freshman year of high school in the beginning painting class. I also felt the paintings were more bold and interesting when they had a lot of contrast with heavy areas of dark and light. This started to develop in my intermediate painting classes where we had to source images with sunlight and shadows.
The layering of paper and other materials started when I enrolled in AP Art senior year of high school. We were assigned a collage style painting. I was so enamored at the examples of students who came before me. Their paintings looked like they were coming to life with a 3-D quality to them. My first ever mixed media collage was a sunflower. I still remember driving out to the farm fields around my house, finding a patch of sunflowers in a ditch that were slightly dying and wilted giving them more texture and life then peak season. Tissue paper, magazine cut outs, and scrapbook paper were used to create that first painting, beginning my love for creating what is called a “Mixed Media Painting,” using more than just paint on the canvas.
My first ever Mixed Media Painting, a collage of paper and acrylic paint of a wilted sunflower in a early fall farm field.
Titled: “The original sunflower” c. 2009
After that, we had to create a 12 piece collection for our AP Art portfolio to submit for grading which is how you pass the course or not. I decided on the concept of “superstitions.” This was the first body of work I ever created, and cemented my working style of creating in a collection- based format. Reflecting on this collection is funny, because in terms of art style, color story, or material it is not cohesive at all, the common thread was the concept of superstitions. It was a mix of acrylic paint, charcoal, colored pencil, and mixed media collage. I started to find that I liked working on the mixed media paintings more than the other mediums.
These are a selection of images from my AP Art Concentration called “Superstitions.” These 4 painting represent different superstitions such as pulling petals off a flower counting if someone loves you, wishing on a shooting star, opening an umbrella inside and wearing a necklace with lucky charms. The rest of my collection images can be found in the Portfolio section of the website here.
Titled: “Superstitions” collection c. 2010
THE MIDDLE
In college at the University of Minnesota my major was in retail merchandising, but I quickly learned that all business classess all the time was not for me. I added on a studio art minor that allowed me to take a variety of classes within a focus of my choice, which was painting. Starting with beginning painting everything is just an assignment that you follow, learning different techniques and ways of creating art. I switched back to just painting in acrylic, no mixed media since it wouldn’t make sense in those assignments.
Junior year during Intermediate painting we were instructed to not paint smaller than 30 x 40 in, which I loved. This was the first time I began painting abstract in acrylic and became comfortable with large canvas. It was so much more free than realistic, so I switched my style to abstract only and began playing with adding in those mixed media materials with the paint. My instructor hated them, but for the first time I didn’t listen because I knew they were what I was meant to create. I created my second ever sunflower in this class on a 30 x 40 in board, playing with more of a background between sky and earth.
Two paintings from my beginning and intermediate paintings courses at the University of Minnesota. The bottle and leaf was a still life painting assignment from beginning painting. The wine glass was an assignment from intermediate painting where we had to source an image that would be painted in a “photo realistic” style, meaning as close to the photo as possible. This was an image of a wine glass on the back porch of my college apartment in Minneapolis. I enjoy seeing my style evolve between the bottle and the wine glass, gaining confidence in my brushstrokes and developing more contrast in my style.
Titled: “Photo Realistic Springtime Wine” c. 2013
Titled: “Still Life Green Bottle” c. 2011
The second sunflower, This once is much larger than the first at 30 x 40” but still explores the concept of a wilted sunflower in a field using acrylic paint and mixed media materials. Some of my favorites are the Caribou Coffee napkins with quotes that make up the cloudy sky. It is not on canvas but on a hardboard giving it a thin but more contemporary feel and allows it to lean against a wall instead of hang. Today it lives in Wisconsin at my parent’s house.
Titled: “The Second Sunflower” c. 2013
When I became a senior and enrolled in Advanced Painting, I knew I found my place. There were no assignments in this course, only working over the course of the semester on creating an 8 piece collection with a cohesive story representing your style as an artist.
Layering paper, lace, dried flowers, magazine cut outs I wanted to explore my mixed media painting style again like in high school. Except this time instead of creating realistic paintings I wanted everything to be abstract. I had the most amazing professor, Clarance Morgan, who was so confused as to what I was doing on that first day. I was the only student in the painting class with all this paper and lace and dried flowers strewn about in the studio. A few days later he walked by as I had layered the paint he told me now he was intrigued and understood what I was trying to attempt. He helped guide me into creating my first 8 piece collection of abstract mixed media paintings and gave me the confidence to own this style of work, and for that I am forever grateful.
My Advanced Painting final from the University of Minnesota. I created 8 mixed media acrylic paintings in various sizes, colors, and on various surfaces. Both stretched canvas, hardboard, and plywood are all used as a base for the paint and materials. Lots of written words, flowers, and thin tissue paper were used in these pieces.
Titled: “The first abstracts” c. 2014
THE END
After college, I began working full time as a visual merchandiser at a department store. Most of my time went to trying to balance post-grad real life and living in a tiny 1 bedroom apartment with not a lot of space to make art. I kept exploring that unique style by testing different color combinations, sourcing unique fabrics and vintage magazines from thrift stores in Minneapolis.
One of the first paintings I created after college. This was the first time I began exploring what it was like to create without a classroom or professor giving assignments or feedback. I love this painting for what it represents, living life in your early 20s after graduation and not really sure of your place in the world.
Titled: “The Next Season of Life” c. 2014 *SOLD*
Moving to Montana at 23, I continued to focus on my retail career and my art took a back seat. I began teaching paint and sip classes in 2016 and this helped me immerse myself back into the practice of creating art. In 2017 I started playing around with large canvas again, set up in my living room or spare bedroom. This time though I began using black and white only. Inspired by one of my paintings from my senior year collection in college, it was the first time I felt a collection forming since then. Except this time, it was one that I felt I wanted to create. Not one for an assignment or based on what I thought other people would like or something that I needed to teach to a class. I loved it. The black and white color palette is very significant to me, as it is the one most apparent in my personal style, home, and overall aesthetic. This was the first time I really let myself explore it in my art. This began to plant the seed that I might want to become a professional artist and sell my own artwork. A dream that formed the first time I started painting at 14, but was pushed to the back to pursue a career that the outside world deemed “worthwhile.”
The first collection I created outside of school, unintentionally. None of these pieces have names, they are all an exploration of my mixed media painting style in a black and white color palette. Almost like an artistic experiment.
My love for painting sunflowers continued, this was the first time I experimented with a plain white background. A big contrast from the first 2 with their fully collaged material and paint backgrounds. I liked the stark contrast of white and the focus on the sunflower and all the texture it brings to the painting. This was the beginning of the inspiration for my first collection of sunflower mixed media paintngs.
Titled: “Sunflower no. 3” c 2017
2020. The world shut down, my retail career slowed way down, I couldn’t host paint classes, so I turned to my own art. There was about a 3 year period where I created basically no art outside of paintings to teach for my paint and sip classes, which were mostly realistic mountain landscapes. I really started to lose my way as an artist. During lockdown I found myself with a lot of extra time and energy outside of my 9-5 for the first time in a long time. This is when I created the “Authenticity” collection, 7 pieces that focused on my unique style of mixed media painting while staying within a neutral color palette of black, white, and gold.
Creating that collection was a very pivotal moment in my artistic journey, and the beginning of my career as an Artist. Essentially, it was a culmination of all the pieces I had created in my teens and twenties, coming out in this cohesive, established style that felt like me. I listed the collection on my personal social media, and sold pieces to friends and family across the USA. This was when I decided to take my art career seriously, and spend the next few years “getting my ducks in a row” as they say. You can read more about the Authenticity collection here.
Titled: “Authenticity” collection c. 2020 Available pieces listed in the shop section of the website
THE NOW
Now, my journey begins with Ashley Ann Art. A culmination of all I’ve learned in school and in my twenties partnered with a more centered and authentic sense of self. I am here to create this unique and sometimes crazy style of art and put it out into the world. I couldn’t imagine myself painting anything else, or doing this in any other way. If you are here I am so grateful, and hope to one day create a piece of art that lives in your world.
I’ve spent the past year or so working on this website, finishing up my first 4 collections, and getting all the necessary business things in place to officially place Ashley Ann Art LLC into the world. Deciding to begin a new journey at 31 might seem daunting to some, but I see it as the perfect evolution of all that I’ve learned so far in both my retail and art careers.
You will see a slow release of the collections of work I have been working on in my basement art studio here in Montana over the past 2 years. Releasing in chronological order of creation, each one explores a different theme or concept. My intention throughout all my work is to inspire you to think new thoughts. To reminisce about moments in your life that seemed confusing, and bring new light to them. To look at old thoughts in new ways.
You can shop available pieces on the SHOP page of this website, or submit a request for commissioned work on the COMMISSIONS page.
THE FUTURE
I hope to write a reflection piece next year, or the next few years. Instead of reviewing my collections of work from high school, college, and 20s, but from my early 30s, being an artist who is out in the world. I hope to create a reflection piece when I’m 80, reviewing my lifetime of work, where it’s been shown, sold, and celebrated.
I hope to evolve my style, to create new pieces and new ideas, to inspired my viewers and collectors to think new thoughts, challenge old ideas, and push fresh ideals. I hope to create things I haven’t even dreamed of yet. I hope to maybe create a collection of fashion pieces, home designs, decor, wallpaper, who knows. I believe in trusting the timing of life bringing Ashley Ann Art to life is a dream I’ve had since I was 18 years old, and I am so thrilled that it’s finally happening.
I am so happy that you are here.
Always,
Ashley