Ashley Cecil
-
Guam Kingfisher on Red
-
Common Yellowthroat on Yellow
-
Extinct Birds
-
Nursing Mammals
-
Spring Peepers, Northern Leopard Frog, Eastern Newt
-
Ruffed Grouse
-
Museum Flora and Fauna pattern
-
Botanical pattern (beech tree leaves)
-
Tree Pittsburgh pattern
-
Botanical pattern (pitcher plants)
-
Yellow Warblers pattern
-
Pin-tailed Manakins on Blue pattern
-
Extinct Birds pattern
-
Nursing Mammals pattern
-
Botanical pattern (wildflowers)
-
BirdsSafe Pittsburgh pattern
-
Magnolia Warbler on Yellow
-
Sirens
-
Sirens (study)
-
Broken Waters
-
Broken Water (study)
-
Makers and Undertakers
-
Gyrfalcons on Gray
-
Common Starlings on Purple
-
Bateleur Eagle on Olive
-
Raven on Teal
-
Canaries on Yellow
-
Orchids on Taupe
-
Yellow-headed Blackbird on Blue
-
Raven on Pink
-
Eagle Owl on Purple
| Artistic Category | Artist |
|---|---|
| Career Level | Professional |
| Experienced With | Collaboration, Commissions, Leading workshops, Lectures, Speaking engagements, Teaching engagements, Public art |
In an age when people are often far removed from nature, that distance threatens the very life nature supports. The aim of my work is to welcome you back to it, to nurture your biophilia.
Visits to sterile science labs, musty natural history museum collections and pristine ecosystems have mended my own severed connection to nature. My studio, a sort of hybrid lab, is where these varied sources of inspiration coalesce into artworks that are reflections on what I’ve learned about our measured impact on nature and what that means to be a mother of two young residents of this ailing planet.
My tedious study and visual representation of birds, beetles, fungi and more intends to draw us closer to those individual parts that play an integral role in the wellbeing of our shared environment.
Ashley Cecil is a Pittsburgh-based artist specializing in paintings of flora, fauna, and the female figure that illustrate the interconnectedness of the natural world and its inhabitants. This focus blossomed as the result of studying landscapes with accomplished painters in London while earning her master's degree at the Sotheby’s Institute of Art, immersing herself in collections of floral textiles in European museums, and painting from live observation at conservation institutions such as the US National Aviary.
Her work includes collaborations close to home with several beloved Pittsburgh institutions such as the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, creating commissioned work for Oxfam America that was exhibited at a United Nations convention on climate change, and far-flung adventures to biological oases like the Amazon rainforest. The aim of her work is to endear her viewers to nature by making our scientific understanding of it relatable to everyday life.
Genres
- Drawing
- Illustration
- Mixed-media
- Painting
- Textile
- Sculpture
- Public Art
Keywords
- Figurative
- Landscape
- Nature
- Oil Paint
- Traditional
- Watercolor
- Acrylic paint
- Digital manipulation
- Metal
- Acrylic
- Organic
- Realist
- Representational