ASHE

“It’s all about taking your work seriously, nothing else is required in my eyes, I hear people think art school is required to be a pro but that’s booboo.”

Basement:  How would you describe yourself as an artist?

Ashe: It’s been a weird process to even be able to call myself that in my brain or when I talk to people about what I do to be honest! I’ve grown in, out, and around the term as I’ve gotten older and learned more what it means to be a maker, growing to understand the full scope of the responsibilities and opportunities required n offered by calling myself an artist. In a “professional” fine art context, I’m at heart a painter. Everything I do is informed by the language of painting I have personally come to understand, which I can get into what that means later. I call myself a multidisciplinary installation artist though first and foremost! In addition to my formal studio practice, I’m also an artist of body (funny way to say I do tattoos LOL) and a designer of extremely specific every-day functional objects (an even funnier way to say I design custom griptape for skateboards and custom paint jobs for things like shirts, shoes, etc. Fun stuff! I love being able to have my work live in so many different ways.)

Basement: How did you get into fine art? What was the journey like developing your unique style?

Ashe: I don’t know if I ever wasn’t into art honestly, I distinctly remember being little baby me and loving my mom’s beautiful pencil figure renders, these super minimal, delicate portraits that almost looked like overexposed photos taken in the sun with the minimal amount of information the work would give viewers, and the detail we would get is so beautiful, I’m clearly a fan of my mom! She had a few hung around the house always, she’d casually tell me stories about being at New York fashion shows as the representative for the label she worked for, and she’d mention attending SAIC for school, stuff I literally didn’t realize was what it was until I got older. All I knew is that I wanted to be like her; draw people as beautiful as she did, go to the same school, (which now I do lol, this is my last semester let’s go!!!) and be creative with everything I do when I got older just like she does. Fast forward a bit through phases of really crappy anime drawings, a little bit of FanFiction writing, crashing and burning all over YouTube, and damaging my epidermis with years of Sharpie and ballpoint pen, now I’m here. At one point, I went to a high school with a visual arts program, Senn Arts over in Edgewater, and the critique system that was included alongside our technical arts education there really got my brain working overtime until it was all I could ever think about or wanted to do. So, now I go to SAIC, and I’m pursuing a BFA that ideally I’m getting at the end of this semester! Love a good origin story.

Basement: You dabble in a few mediums, including custom grip tapes- how did that whole idea start?  Can you tell me a bit about some of the other creative work you do?

Ashe: Well, SweatySox came alongside finding skateboarding again. I wanted to get into it when I was younger, but I got hit with the "that's something your brother can do, not you" situation, so I wasn't able to get my own board until I got waaaay older when my dad bought me a cruiser against my mom's wishes… I wanted to contribute something back as a thank you for everything it has done for me; granting me safety, travels, memories, passion, family. And once I saw the world of deck and grip graphics at more depth, I was sold, done for, I had to do something. So I made a few drafts, showed a few friends to confirm it wasn't gonna be nasty, and now I'm the proud artist and owner of SweatySox… I'm so passionate about what I do, and I love how my work brings people's smiles and ideas to life and activates their own creativity. There's nothing better than that.   

“I have realized over the years that even paint becomes unnecessary to the medium of painting… Instead of just with paint, I now paint with light, language, sound, and I am now able to paint the spaces that hold us in an entirely new way.”

Basement: What inspires your work? What narratives do you hope come across in your pieces? 

Ashe: In terms of my fine arts studio practice, there have been a series of questions/inquiries in my brain lately regarding the human experience of mortality, lifespan, and memory that have really inspired my work. What is to be done with the sticky, murky foams and skin-thin films that coat the collections of words, pictures, sounds, and smells that we harbor in our chests, in our spines, behind our eyes, on the palms of our hands? We are left with traces to follow, and we leave our own residue in pursuit, leaving mixed muds of ourselves and others behind for the next to slosh lovingly in. Considering the molding, breathing nature of our memory in direct correlation with the human life cycle, I'm really invested in fabricating knowingly “failed” representations of our glossed over, fragmented, fixated recollections. Creating documents and artifacts that reflect the extremely mortal nature of memory* through an interdisciplinarily informed installation practice, my work is an endless attempt to grapple with human mortality and the pseudo immortality memory in its many forms provides. These aesthetics start to bleed into my concepts for my griptape on SweatySox, where I'm taking the same journalling that informs my studio practice and repurposing it as part aesthetic part concept for what I illustrate.

Ashe: Through utilization of painting language and ideology, I describe myself as a multidisciplinary installation artist. I strive to invite audiences into my memories and my experiences through curated spaces of object, sound, video, light, paint, and poetry/word. (Installation is an art making medium/method that considers or addresses space in some way- space can mean a room, a building, under something, above something, you name it. It’s the fact you are made to notice the space around the artwork, by the artwork, is what turns other art we engage with like a painting, into an installation! Really fascinating stuff. It can get really conceptual really fast.) Through my installations, I try to invite others into my own memory through an almost suggestively first-person, abstracted/fragmented experience in order to connect with others and come to terms with the things I have experienced or will come to in light of the human memory, (A big subjective forgetful hyper focused selfish hot mess in my experience, which I am constantly referencing/addressing in my work.) In addition to that stuff, I’m a current student of body art! I'm learning the tattooing trade very slowly on my own, and so far I love everything about it! Especially in love with the rich histories that can be found globally regarding the practice, such a beautiful thing. 

Basement: Why is Chicago a special place to be an artist?

Ashe: Well, I'm already extremely biased because I'm from Chicago, I grew up in West Ridge/Rogers vicinity, I love my city. We have such a diverse and rich culture as a city packed to the brim with creativity and culture, we truly host a vast collection of beautiful communities with amazing histories from both within and outside the boundaries that define Chicago's start and end. Through our diversity, we have been gifted with countless phenomenal leaders of all ages and backgrounds doing such important work regarding the dismantling of systemic oppression locally (and nationally) in order to create a better future for our city's youth; pushing us into a tomorrow that I am relieved, hopeful, and grateful to be a part of. It is important to always remember and appreciate the differences we share here in Chicago as to ensure we are being the best supporters and neighbors for one another that we can be; that means being aware of the spaces we take up, where other's need our assistance, and how they need our assistance, and educating ourselves whenever we can. Listening is key! Chicago is a special place to be an artist because we have these opportunities to experience and learn so much from one another through our vast diversity. And, especially in my generation, we are always thinking of how to create a better future for each other, I couldn't be more proud of where I come from.

Basement: What’s next for you?

Ashe: I’m aiming to find new opportunities to grow! Push my boundaries/comforts and get myself out there more than ever. I never want to stop growing and learning about the spaces I inhabit and the privileges I hold as a maker and as who I am. Socially and/or culturally, artists are so powerful and sometimes I think it’s forgotten or goes unnoticed; the construction of all we know has some type of root in the arts or reference to the arts, and we have the ability to inform, educate, and unite communities with our platforms, whether it is online with social media, a mural in a neighborhood, inside the classroom, or on a pedestal in a gallery, our work has the potential and ability to be just as loud as a voice, if not louder, in the way that fine art has the ability to surpass the need for what we understand as language as a whole. I want to continue to learn and figure new ways to use my work as an extension of my voice to unite and create spaces of home, solidarity, and support for others.

I’m Arab, Black, and white, and I’m a non-binary person. I grew up feeling like I never had a real place, no reference or inspirations, so I am hoping to serve as a positive role model to the youth of my communities and my city. I want to promote a message with my platform that they can achieve whatever they set their minds to, that they are valid, and that they belong. In specific to my griptape brand/practice, I really want to use SweatySox as a way to promote creativity in the skateboarding community, support new or interested skaters, and serve as an example that yes, people who look like me can do this too, because I know how it feels to feel unrepresented and like you just don’t belong. I want to continue to aid in the continuing of deconstruction of misogyny in skate spaces and the skateboarding community as a whole. (Shout out to local groups/organizations/brands like FroSkate and ImBoard for serving as such great leaders and inspirations for this work! Please check them out!)

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