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My name is Ashley Billings
I'm from Rochester, New York, and I am a second year MFA student in the Fine Arts studio program
My work really centers around
my philosophical journey
to see how knowledge impacts what I'm doing with paint
It initially started with painting the piano as a way to show appreciation for childhood circumstance
and that's evolved to using much larger architectural
influences such as
ancient
islam mosques
to kind of
uh... i guess explore how
painting is influenced by these different things
I primarily work in oil painting
and uh... that does transcend sometimes to work with three-dimensional
objects just to help inform me what I'm doing two-dimensionally
uh... my greatest artistic influence is mark rathko
I also
have looked a lot at Henri Magritte and a keep in touch with a contemporary painter
out of Calcutta, India
and i think just stylistically he's really influence out the work that i've
done and I like to send him messages to let him know that he is making a
difference and influencing artists
even as far as on the other side of the world
I think, uh, I'm
definitely dependent on an object or something to inspire me
Architecture's a big one as far as I think using organizational
principles for my compositions
And then I'll lay out a base
all over an entire canvas and
also use that paint to inform
where the composition goes
The piece that most represents my work is always going to be the
newest piece that i've done or at least it should be because that shows that i'm
progressing conceptually and technically with
with my understanding of what it is that i'm doing
and with my placement in the community of artists
One piece that may have sentimental value is I recently used
the actual piano that I grew up with that has been handed down in my family
and
I disassembled it, checked out what's going on in there
and let different elements of that structure kind of
fall into some of the work that I've done as well as inform some of the paintings
that I've done
Ideally in the next three to five years I hope to be
involved in researching contemporary art
and getting to know artists and understanding you know how they
function in
the artist community
as well as as something
some sort of employment that informs what I'm doing in the studio too and that would be
complimentary
to the work that I do
as an artist
I think the best advice I could give to aspiring artists
is to really take advantage of the availability of information today
and I think being part of the artistic community being part of that dialogue
talking with other artists see what they're doing
what's happening around you can really inform
what it is that you are doing as an artist
I think it's really important to listen
to what your peers have to say about what you're doing
and and other people
and I think another thing is to just really practice what it is you're doing
Even if you think you're good at something practice can only make it
work better for you