Today we’d like to introduce you to Ashley Busby.
Ashley, please kick things off for us by telling us about yourself and your journey so far.
My relationship with nature has always been a part of my creative path. I grew up in Katy, TX, exploring the overgrown Houston landscape and making art about my observations. My early drawings and paintings were made during periods of immersing myself and secluding myself from the outdoors.
I received a BA in art with a minor in creative writing in 2012 from Houston Baptist University. When I was 24, I moved to Lubbock, TX and began my graduate painting studies at Texas Tech University. The dramatic shift in the landscape inspired me to explore the conceptual boundaries of my practice by experimenting with surface and mixed media in the studio.
After graduating with my MFA in 2016, I interned with the Shumla Archaeological Research and Education Center, an organization dedicated to preserving and documenting Native American pictographs in the Lower Pecos region. For several months I worked with the Shumla team in Comstock, TX, studying the desert landscape, and continuing my studio practice.
My most recent move to Albany, NY in 2017 has brought about new ideas and questions to my artistic practice. In the northeast, I continue my research documenting surfaces, studying indigenous art, and exploring new terrains.
Can you give our readers some background on your art?
My studio work examines the intermittent and detached relationships I have with the natural world. Rather than the immediate, distinct experience with the landscape, my work begins from the moments after I have left. Sometimes, it takes months or years before I create work from an encounter I have had in nature. I am fascinated by how time and distance change my perception of each place I’ve seen and been.
I work in several mediums – traditional stretched canvas, sculptural canvas, and collaged paper. Through flat and formed surfaces I explore the potential of images and memories from nature to grow beyond and rewrite themselves. Through my process of collaging and reshaping canvas, I explore image as it becomes physical again through the dimensional form. Each painting evolves over time, expanding and seeping past the boundaries of what I remember.
My work is about how we internalize our world. It’s just as much about the past as it is the future. My process of collaging, tearing apart, and reshaping surface is a search for the partial, messy, and undefined ways we experience the natural world now. I am intrigued by the intermittent relationships people are forming with their surroundings – of re-occurring detachment and interaction. It’s a dynamic that inspires my creative process and my research.
What responsibility, if any, do you think artists have to use their art to help alleviate problems faced by others? Has your art been affected by issues you’ve concerned about?
Artists are in a constant state of response. Being a creator involves absorbing, processing ideas, and making objects to be seen. This is a responsibility that should be acknowledged by all people who make art and not be taken lightly. While it is not an artists job to convey a particular message, artists should make work that is honest with themselves and in line with their values.
Among other things, my work is a product of my growing environmental concerns. I am troubled by our impact on the wildlife and ecosystems of our world. Pollution, deforestation, and global warming are just a few of the problems caused by unsustainable human practices. Our ability to shut ourselves in, and separate ourselves from nature is a big part of this problem. I am also inspired by how technology has improved the visibility of these issues. I am grateful to see how social media has allowed for environmental organizations and political movements to gain the recognition and financial backing to make a difference.
While not overtly political, my work discusses the susceptibility of the natural world: how it changes and reshapes itself. Understanding the balance between people and the world they live in has been an ongoing question in my studio practice. My hope is that after seeing my work, the viewer begins to question what these boundaries are and how to define the natural world in their own lives.
What’s the best way for someone to check out your work and provide support?
In Texas, I have been part of group shows in Rockport Center for the Arts, the Assistance League of Houston, and at the C.A.S.P. exhibition space in Lubbock, TX. Most recently, I have shown with Viridian Artists in NYC, as well as with the Rochester Museum of Fine arts in Rochester, NH earlier this year.
I am always applying to shows and proposing exhibitions. The best way to keep in touch with any current shows I am participating in is through my website and Instagram.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.ashleymbusby.com
- Phone: 281-889-7604
- Email: busbyam90@gmail.com
- Instagram: @ashleymbusby
Image Credit:
Ashley Busby
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