Ashley Collins
[4] Although painting professionally since 1988, Collins first came to blue chip collector attention in the early 2000s for her massive scaled contemporary works integrating portions of figurative horseheads amongst layers of collage, historical documents, steel, metal, and other mediums which Collins integrated into her monumental works;[5] breaking price points for living female contemporary painters.
The importance and monetary values of Collins paintings are driven by international blue chip collectors and include: Peter and Melanie Munk, Christy Walton,[11] Marta Kaufman and Michael Skloff, Stan Kroenke, Blythe Danner, Steven Spielberg/Kate Capshaw, Graeme Hart, Robert Redford,[12] Chuck Binder, Gerald and Stanlee Rubin (founder, Rubin Center for the Visual Arts), Lady Gaga,[13] Elizabeth Eply,[14][15] John Kahlbetzer,[16] Jan Brink,[17] Gianlucca Galtrucco, Tomas Milmo Santos, Danny Sullivan, Brenda Sullivan III, George Rosenthal, Bollinger Family Trust, Horchow Family Trust, Arliss Howard and Deborah Winger,[18] Scott and Mer James,[19] Dennis and Stacy Barsema, Richard Chamberlain,[20] Michael Imperioli, Michael and Lauri Corliss, Norman Pearlmutter, Wade Skinner.
Rather than skimp on paint or materials, she was homeless much of the time, sleeping in cars, on abandoned boats in Marina Del Ray, and on the couches of kind strangers,[25] a repeating echo of her childhood.
[26] At one point, the actor Arliss Howard (an early collector along with wife Debra Winger) kindly allowed her to stay in his small Santa Monica guesthouse rent free each time he left Los Angeles to work in New York – a kindness that for Collins was like “living in heaven.”[27] The home was small and simple, yet for Collins, after being homeless, it felt like a mansion.
Collins daily routine was broken up only by frequently being fired from jobs (fatigued from painting and lack of sleep), and assembling and submitting countless gallery request.
Over the next six year period, her work became steadily more and more visible in the art markets, showing with John Baldessari, Joe Ando, Johnathan Borofsky,[36] with Mark di Suvero, with Edward Ruscha, Lita Alberquerque, Chuck Arnoldi, Laddie John Dill, Eric Orr, Peter Alexander, with Deborah Butterfield and Susan Rothenburg, with Jim Dine, Robert Rauschenberg, Chuck Close, Susan Rothenberg, Roy Lichtenstein and Sol Lewitt,.
[39] However, Collins still continued to meet resistance -hearing repeatedly that any work involving the figurative aspect of a horse could not be true contemporary art (a battle also still fought by Deborah Butterfield).
The horse is a metaphor – unlike those whose are attached to the western romance with horses-Collins contemporary layered works poetically address sociological and psychological issues of power, strength, love, endurance.
[42] "Collins primary collector base is focused primarily on contemporary art, as her works simply transcend and surpass other categories"[43] Her frequent use of the horse imagery represents the soul of those in life that help us along our path and touch us in ways inexplicable.
For some, these angels may appear as strangers speaking just the right words, a family member to lean on, a partner in life or business who steps beyond the bounds with true strength, or friend whose steadfast commitment shines so brightly as to allow the sharing of light.
Collins mixed media portraits defy convention, a black flash of oil paint often resembling a grainy photograph artfully collaged with antique hued book pages, scraps of paper, encaustic or resin, suggesting the passage of time and personal history.
Collins brings a female perspective to structure, loosening our idea of geometry, and incorporating nature, and the colors brought to her aged paper by the sun, wind and rain into the process, and into the forefront of our world.
