Week 8- Artist Conversation

Artist: Ashley Anderson

Exhibition: Lucky Places for a Grave

Media: watercolor, graphite, charcoal, pastel, acrylic

Gallery: LBSU School of Art, Merlino Gallery

Website: ashanders.com

Instagram: meownderson

Ashley Anderson is currently an undergraduate student in the School of Arts illustration program, and is studying to get her BFA. Her interests include watching horror movies and reading horror related literature. She also enjoys reading comics, nonfiction, and folktales.

The work she created were paintings that were all about the same size, but some were taller, and others were wider. In one of her works called, “Pata De Chiva” she created a goat like creature that had the head of a goat mixed with a more human body. She used more neutral colors in this piece and used line work that gave it texture. She also created a piece called, “Little Omies Revenge” that shows a hum head emerging from water. She used neutral colors and blues to create this piece, and the media she used to create it allowed it to be textured.

The exhibit was very interesting to look at as it was her own spin on folktales. It caught my attention because of the use of watercolor and the colors that were used. Their idea was to create an exhibit that showed the impact that folktales have on ourselves and our identity. They also wanted to show how people from different backgrounds view the same folktales. She wanted to rewrite folktales to reflect a greater reality. The exhibit was very research heavy as she had to research a bunch of folktales. She chose folktales that she grew up with, and ones that she had a personal attachment to. She also wanted to make it clear that all of these pieces were new and made quickly in order to meet a deadline.

I definitely grasped onto the folktale element when I walked into the exhibit. Although I was not familiar with all of the folktales that they twisted into their own, all of the pieces were interesting to look at. My favorite piece was “Pata De Chiva” which was happened to be the artists favorite as well. Her art exposed me to new folktales as well as well as helped me view ones I already knew from a different perspective.