Ashley Sellner is an artist and photographer who has worked in the visual arts for over twenty years. Originally from the mountains of southwest Virginia, Ashley received her Bachelor of Arts in Art History from Wake Forest University. Here she had the opportunity to spend time in both the studio and the darkroom. Ashley lives in Charlotte with her husband and two teenage children, Jack and Mae. She is a member of Studioworks Artist Collective + Gallery where she paints and shows her work. Ashley's landscape paintings are most influenced by the two places she loves most, the mountains north of Asheville and their small cabin on Lake Tillery. Statement:My practice is founded upon the exploration of the sacred space I inhabit, and the deep communion that arises from an authentic experience with creation. I am on a pilgrimage between two homes – the home of my childhood spent on a mountain in Southwest Virginia and the home where I will come to rest. In order to wander between the two with intention, I am compelled to meditate upon moments – a long-range view enveloped by clouds, gathering dusk in the foothills, light reflected and refracted in the current. These visual meditations become abstracted iterations of place and time inviting the viewer to reflect on their own unique pilgrimage. Using images and plein air studies from my travels as a catalyst, I rely on a process that is both intuitive and experimental, exploring and manipulating the limits of each medium. The first wash of paint is both spontaneous and chaotic giving rise to gestural marks and abstraction. Sometimes collaged elements build layers, allowing for improvisation and dissonance. Fields of color move and shift until the relationship between the layers forms a resolved narrative. In the spring of 2020 during the first months of the pandemic, my focus shifted to my immediate space and the rooms we inhabit. Can we create sacred space within our homes and furthermore, what brings life into this space? My approach to these intimate portraits has been quite different from the larger landscapes I am accustomed to painting. The outside world is dynamic, there is movement, and my marks reflect this freedom and energy. In contrast, these small paintings have been a study of detail and the intentionality and efficiency of each brushstroke; the way a shadow darkens a baseboard, the slope of a chaise and its perfectly appointed pillow, the glow of lacquered walls in an empty dining room. There is a profound stillness to these highly edited spaces; for life is not imbued by the one who designed and created the space, but those who embody it. Each small study feels like a meditation, a reminder of a season marked by quietness, solitude and rest.