K. Ashley Pittman (KASHLEY) is a mostly self-taught acrylics artist whose interest in painting began as a child where he first picked up a brush at age 12, exploring a summer oil painting class. Initially, he moved away from fine art painting during early adult life to focus on his need to succeed in business. He graduated with honors earning a BBA from Georgia State University and has spent time as an entrepreneur and in the corporate world. After leaving his business career behind, KASHLEY returned to his artistic roots searching for a creative outlet and a new path. His first few paintings explored varied subject matter from traditional landscapes and still life to portraits and abstracts. With additional training in acrylics and drawing from the Atlanta College of Art, he began to refine his work. He continued to explore different subject matter looking for themes that were interesting and much more challenging than what he had accomplished up to this point, which more recently has led him to focus his energies on his abstracts and the Limited Edition Cocktail Series. KASHLEY is a member of the Atlanta Artist Center and the Atlanta Fine Arts League.
ARTIST COMMENTS
An overwhelming desire to satisfy my creative outlet and my growing passion for fine art painting has led me to pursue a career in art. My need for perfection and detail drives my aspiration for work that is both substantial and unique. Having varied creative interests has allowed me to use acrylic medium to explore several thematic areas of painting including more traditional landscapes & still life, abstracts, Reflection Series portraits and with my latest work the Limited Edition Cocktail Series.
When working with landscapes and still life paintings, I endeavor to capture the realism of the subject matter in a way that is visually and emotionally pleasing and familiar.
My abstract work is influenced by those things found in surrounding nature. I enjoy discovering new patterns of color and texture in such things as trees, rocks, and celestial bodies. Art indeed imitates life and when looking closely at the veins in a rock, or the texture of a tree’s bark I can find inspiration for my abstracts because these things inately have artistic qualities. My abstracts are typically heavily textured with paint and gel mediums to give the canvas life and instill an interaction with the viewer to want to touch the work just as if you might want to feel the texture of a rock or a piece of bark.
My Reflection Series portraits seek to convey the character in the subject’s face using dramatic lighting to induce playful drama between cast and shadow. My portraits are subdued, usually in contemplation, to allow light reflections of the subject to tell the story.
Finally, as an artist constantly searching for what drives my realistic style and artistic expression, I became captivated by transparencies and color variations in glass and its unique distortions and reflective qualities. While looking creatively at this process, my work involving cocktail related themes soon evolved exploring more abstract angles, dramatic coloring and tonal values within scenes depicting cocktail glasses and bottles. I try not to take myself too seriously, however, in that although I do strive for the technical aspect of my work to express a heightened sense of detail and an extreme quality, I also want my work to create an openness and relaxed sensation for the viewer. My use of photography to stage and setup the scene before painting is done purely from a self-taught basis which I believe is a nice advantage in representing my overall style. I tend to use more harsh lighting versus diffused lighting to create boldness in color and increased refractions of light within my work and along with cropping at interesting angles create a more modern and abstract feel to my paintings. Patrons of my work have often commented on how each scene although captured in a photo realistic way also brings with it such movement in color and imagination that it greatly increases its artistic beauty. I endeavor to portray each scene within a setting that is both rich in detail and mood evoking capturing not only the look, but the feel and personality each cocktail scene conjures. My intention with each Limited Edition Cocktail Series painting is to offer a visually gratifying experience that seeks to recall a moment when the simple pleasure of enjoying a cocktail is often celebrated.
