About Ashe​

Ashe received an M.F.A. from the School of Visual Arts (NY) and a Bachelors degree studio art from the University of Texas at Austin. From 1991 to 2003, he maintained a studio in Manhattan and also taught undergraduate design, drawing and painting classes. ​

 

Ashe taught art as a Senior Lecturer at Texas State University and as and Adjunct Professor at  Austin Community College from 2001-2015. ​His work has been exhibited in Massachusetts, Missouri, New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia Texas and Virginia.​

 

About the Work

 In my most recent work, I’ve been creating collages as a basis for a series of drawings which are made using multiple layered sheets of acrylic/ Plexiglas and oil paint pen. I use a different color on each sheet of plexi and stack the sheets on top of one another to form a dense web of imagery. The collages I make for this process use figuration as their basis though through the drawing process imagery becomes obfuscated and abstracted creating a new dual image which resides between figuration and abstraction.

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Reflecting many of these same conceptual approaches, I have another body of work I call q-tip paintings. In these works, I paint the tips of medical q-tips and embed the shafts into marine-grade plywood in a grid of holes that are machine drilled 1 centimeter apart. The surfaces of these paintings are thus raised above a traditional ground, allowing the dynamics of color in space to animate and move. Shadow play from the raised surface emphasizes the infrastructure of the work.

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Similarly, my oil paintings are layered, with highly textured surfaces that come about by a gradual shifting and recasting of forms, resulting in a visceral physicality of accumulating paint. 

 

Through layers and texture and stacking of imagery, my work provides complex, discovery-based viewing experiences that are emotional and reflective. The spatial depth in my drawings and paintings engages the viewer as forms materialize and dematerialize. In one moment, my work might look like pure abstraction, in the next, formative images or scenes. Most of my work throws shadows, compelling viewers to study and move around a piece to see how the three dimensional depth and color relationships are made. They draw you in and, I hope, keep you in.