BIOGRAPHY
“My deepest desire as an artist is to bring people together through a shared sense of awe and reverence for the beautiful gifts of nature, time, and human love around us.” -Ashley Benton
Ashley is a landscape artist currently residing in Mississippi. She has always felt drawn to the daily changing scenery of the landscape. She began painting landscapes more frequently upon graduating from the University of Mississippi in 2020, focusing primarily on the sky, and how light hit the clouds. Light and movement have always influenced her, but recently, she has been influenced by how a certain place feels, and painting based on that feeling, creating an impressionistic style influenced by Claude Monet. She works with oil paints mainly due to their slow-drying process. This allows Ashley to slowly work in colors, evaluate, and change the painting as she analyzes. Ashley is especially inspired by nature—particularly moments in a landscape where the light uniquely strikes the scenery. She tends to wait for a piece to dry completely, and then slowly add light layers to certain areas of the landscape to add depth and intentionality.
Her landscapes capture a feeling of that particular place using vibrant colors and wispy brushstrokes often being described as soft, ethereal, and bright. To her, a vast landscape enhances her awareness of her small place in the world—that it is not the scenery that gets to partake in her life, but rather that she has the pleasure of partaking in something much greater than herself. Ashley paints in her backroom studio in Jackson, Mississippi. Her deepest desire as an artist is to bring people together through a shared sense of awe and reverence for the beautiful gifts of nature, time, and human love around us. While Ashley pursues her growing creative business, she works part-time as a Display Artist at her local Anthropologie.
HISTORY
Ashley was born in Las Cruces, New Mexico, and later moved to Norman, Oklahoma where she spent the rest of her childhood. She grew up with five brothers and a sister. Ashley’s upbringing could be credited for cultivating her love of making art. Her parents encouraged her from a young age to pour into learning and bettering her artistic skills. Ashley sold her first painting in 2007 at a Fall Festival school auction when she was in 5th grade. She won my first award for a drawing submitted to a contest at the Oklahoma History Center in 2009. This encouraged Ashley to pursue more technical challenges via youtube videos and art books. Ashley launched her art instagram account in 2020 painting mini florals on canvas at the start of her freshman year in college. Ashley graduated from the University of Mississippi with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree and an emphasis in Graphic Design. This program influenced her to see such beauty in all forms of art; it even challenged her to seek inspiration from all mediums, and apply that to her emphasis.
FOLLOW MY PROCESS AS I PURSUE MY PASSION.
@ashley.benton.design
