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About Ashe
Ashe received an undergraduate degree in Painting from the University of Texas at Austin in 1987 and an M.F.A. from the School of Visual Arts in New York City in 1993. From 1991 to 2003, he maintained a studio in Manhattan and taught undergraduate art courses in New Jersey. Since 2001, Ashe has been teaching studio art courses at Texas State University and Austin Community College. Ashe lives and works in Austin, Texas, with his wife and son. Ashe has exhibited his work in Massachusetts, Missouri, New Jersey,New York,Pennsylvania and Texas.
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Artist's Statement
In my painting, I employ a heavy impasto of oil paint on canvas, linen, or wood, to achieve a layered, highly textured surface. The physicality of the accumulating paint provides spatial depth, movement, and illusion through which forms materialize and dematerialize. The paintings have a duality that can be viewed both as pure abstraction and as spatially formative images. I try to engage the viewer to see something new upon each viewing and to play with the space of a painting to allow for multiple interpretations of image.
In my drawings, I am also very interested in a complex layering of line and form to create works with a quality of spatial illusion. My drawings are generally figurative in nature and rely on the complexity of line to describe dense space. In my most recent series of drawings I used the obituary section of the local newspaper as a starting point. This series encompassed all of the photos of the deceased represented in the paper on a given day. In viewing these photographs, I am left with the sense that with a person’s death some final images representing the individual are all that is left. I am also intrigued by the idea that through the series, these unknown people’s images have a place in our consciousness even after the newspaper is discarded.
In all of my work, I strive to create a complex viewing experience that is emotional, reflective and engaging to a viewer's active curiosity.
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