“Summer” July 7 - August 29th

ASHLEIGH SUMNERWRITTEN ALL OVER YOUR FACE

May 10 - June 25thArtist Reception

Saturday, May 14, 5-8pm

“Written All Over Your Face”, is a bold exhibition of new mixed media paintings by Ashleigh Sumner, currently on view at Zener Schon Contemporary Art using hand written words of history’s great minds as both layered abstract and mixed media, image centered work.

“We are living in a time where handwriting has become a lost art, my goal is to create a body of work that not only draws you in visually but draws you in even deeper to absorb the writing.” comments Sumner.

Sumner’s works are visually captivating and compelling as she continues to explore the relationship of the dichotomy of good and bad through her eleven new works on view at Zener Schon Contemporary Art. She depicts personalities from history and pop culture who reflect the tension – those who were both idolized and condemned by society and the public at large.  In this exhibition, Sumner expands her oeuvre of paintings by using actual hand written letters from JFK, Eleanor Roosevelt, Martin Luther King, John Lennon, Tupac Shakur, Benazir Bhutto and other great political icons and poets. The authors may be deceased, but their words are relevant to today.

Assembled with various mediums including: spray paint, house paint, silk screens, inks, Sumner uses layering of materials to create a depth in her work. Sumner has spent years collecting found paper around the world such as; poetry readings, political flyers, gay club advertisements, and concerts. ‘

“I make hundreds of copies of these flyers. I repeat the process of stacking and painting over them until I’ve created several layers to the piece. I love distressing and weathering the work. It’s not a “gentle” process at all.”

ASHLEIGH SUMNER

"I USED TO BE GREAT" 44"  x 44"

Mixed Media, Spray Paint, House Paint, Silk Screen and Ink on Birch Panel with Veneer Finish, 2016

ASHLEIGH SUMNER

JIMI WAS A ROCKSTAR 40" x 40"

Acrylic, Spray Paint, Mixed Media, Silk Screen, and Ink on Birch Panel Finished with Resin, 2016

Handwriting by Jimi Hendrix

ASHLEIGH SUMNER

JIMI WAS A ROCK STAR II 40"  x 40”

House Paint, Silk Screen, and Ink on Birch Panel Finished in Resin, 2016

Handwriting by Jimi Hendrix

ASHLEIGH SUMNER

IN MY LIFE 44" x 44"

House Paint, Ink and Silk Screen, Mixed Media, and Spray Paint on Birch Panel, Finished with Resin, 2016

Handwriting by John Lennon

ASHLEIGH SUMNER

SINNER MAN WHERE YOU GONNA RUN TO 60" x 60"

Mixed Media, Spray Paint, House Paint, Silk Screen, and Ink on Birch Panel with Veneer Finish, 2016

Handwriting by Tupac Shakur and Jimi Hendrix

ELEANOR ROOSEVELT MEETS JFK 44" x 44"

House Paint, Ink and Silk Screen, and Spray Paint on Birch Panel Finished with Resin, 2016

Handwriting by Eleanor Roosevelt and JFK

ASHLEIGH SUMNER

ASHLEIGH SUMNER

WHEN WE WERE KINGS 44" x 44”

Mixed Media, House Paint, Spray Paint, Silk Screen, and Ink on Birch Panel with Veneer Finish, 2016

Handwriting from the James Bay Treaty

“Summer” July 7 - August 29th

NO PRESSURE. NO DIAMONDS 42" x 72"

House Paint, Spray Paint, Silk Screen and Ink on Birch Panel with Veneer Finish, 2016

Handwriting by Martin Luther King and Eleanor Roosevelt

“Summer” July 7 - August 29th

DEEP TRUST. HIGH HOPES 96" x 96"

Acrylic, Spray Paint, Oil Pastel, and Mixed Media on Panel with Resin Finish, 2014

“Summer” July 7 - August 29th

WE ARE ALL POETS 48" x 48"

Acrylic, Spray Paint, Oil Pastel, and Mixed Media on Panel with Resin Finish, 2015

“Summer” July 7 - August 29th

BLESSED WITH BEAUTY AND RAGE 48" x 48"

Acrylic, Street Flyers, Spray Paint and Ink on Panel with Resin, 2015

“Summer” July 7 - August 29th

KILLER KARMA 36" x 50"

Spray Paint, Silk Screen, and India Ink on Paper, 2015

“Summer” July 7 - August 29th

I WILL NOT LOSE. EVER. 36" x 50"

Spray Paint, Silk Screen, and India Ink on Paper, 2015

ARTIST BACKGROUND

Ashleigh Sumner is a self-taught artist living and working out of the Arts District in Downtown, Los Angeles. Born in 1979, Sumner received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Western Carolina University before moving West to Los Angeles.

Much of Sumner’s work is heavily inspired by industrial areas, inner city life, and political/social movements of the past and present. Sumner’s mixed media process often involves iconic images along with material used from found street flyers. These images are printed and applied repeatedly to wooden canvases creating multiple stacked and torn layers of distress paper imagery. In Sumner’s most recent work, she has begun to incorporate a silk screening process. Her natural love of text is often implemented through out her pieces by incorporating pages from books of poetry, verse, lyrics and theatrical plays in a way that often makes a political or social statement involving class, gender, poverty and equality. The heavy use of spray paint or “graffiti ramblings” is repeated over and over again, illegibly, often as a single song lyric, poem or historic quote. House paint is applied, scrapped and splattered through out the work then partially sanded away with an industrial hand sander to achieve a distressed visual. Lastly, several heavy layers of resin are added to each to create a smooth, modern finish to the gritty artwork underneath.

Sumner has exhibited with nationally and internationally. Her works is in private collections, such as in Hong Kong, London, New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.

In 2014, Sumner was named by a juried panel the winner of the Red Bull Curates Competition for Los Angeles. As a result, Sumner’s work was highlighted in a special exhibition with SCOPE, Miami at the Miami Basel that year.

In addition, Sumner proudly curated in 2012 “Street Preachers: An Exhibition of Female Street Artists in Los Angeles” at the Center for the Arts, Eagle Rock in east L.A. “Street Preachers” was awarded grants from both the Pasadena Art Alliance and the Los Angeles County Arts Commission.

Ashleigh Sumner: Q & A

1. What is the title and the main theme of your new show at Zener Schon Contemporary Art?

The title of my new show is “Written All Over Your Face.” The main theme of the work is the use of the hand written words of history’s great minds presented as both layered abstract and mixed media, image centered work.

2. How have you been inspired to create this new body of work?

I love the use of text. I’ve always used text, words, and numbers through out my work. This body of work is a new progression of that process. We are living in a time where handwriting has become a lost art. Cursive is no longer taught in schools and letters are no longer sent with a postage stamp, communication is now sent digitally. Handwriting is something so uniquely individual to us all; no two are exactly alike. Yet, just like the cave man drawings and hieroglyphics over time where phased out by new means of written communication (the alphabet), we’re seeing handwriting being phased out by typing. Love letters have been replaced by “sexting.” Postcards have been replaced by “posts, and so on.”

I’ve always been inspired by political statements of art and also the icons of history, whom over time, have come to symbolize so much more in society than just their initial fame. In the past I’ve used photos of Muhammad Ali, Jackie O, Jane Fonda, Johnny Cash, etc. In this exhibition, I wanted to create something different, not so on the nose and frankly something I haven’t seen done before. I wanted to use the actual hand written letters from JFK, Eleanor Roosevelt, Martin Luther King, John Lennon, Tupac Shakur, Benazir Bhutto and other great political icons and poets. All the authors of the letters are dead, but their words are still very relevant to today. My goal is to create a body of work that not only draws you in visually but draws you in even deeper to absorb the writing.

4. Can you describe the processes of the “mixed media” that you are creating within your works?

For years I’ve used a lot of paper in my work. I use found street flyers I’ve collected from across the globe ranging from poetry readings, political gatherings, gay club advertisements, and concerts. I make hundreds of copies of these flyers. I repeat the process of stacking and painting over them until I’ve created several layers to the piece. I also use an industrial sander to sand way areas of paint revealing the layers of paper and paint stacked underneath. I love distressing and weathering the work. It’s not a “gentle” process at all. Lastly, I’ll silk screen the letters across the canvas. In some pieces of “Written All Over Your Face,”, I’ll silk screen an image on top of the silk screened handwriting or add an image printed from paper.

5. How do you feel you works have evolved within the last 3 years?

I think my work has definitely become more layered over time. I’ve become more comfortable adding layers that will not necessarily ever be seen by the viewer but are there and create depth. Over the past three years, I’ve been moving away from street art as such a heavy influence. I’m looking for inspiration from different types of artists, Cy Twombly, Mark Bradford, Jose Parla, and the political wit of Barbara Kruger, to name just a few. So I’m seeking inspiration from a different “creative well” than I did three years ago. However, I still love using spray paint as a nod to the extremely urban environment , the Arts District of LA, that I live and work in. I’m also bringing in the use of silk screened imagery in my work which was not there three years ago. I’m seeking to bring, for a lack of a better word, maturity to my work, which is an evolving process.

Ashleigh Sumner: Q & A Continued

6. Is there a common theme that transcends throughout your work over the years?

I think the common theme in my work has always been text. From using scraps of pages from books of poetry and plays to using graffiti to tag out words and phrases, to now using silk screened letters from the icons of the past, language has always been present in my work

7. How do you feel your personal background has influenced your artwork?

I was theatre major and as a theatre major you’re reading plays ALL THE TIME. From working so many years in the theatre and in film and television, I fell in love with the writing of Tennessee Williams, Wendy Wasserstein, and John Patrick Shanley. Words are so profound. So the love of text is very much a part of me. I also think my background in studying the craft of acting has been uniquely a huge influence in how I approach painting. They’re actually very similar. I try to bring myself emotionally to a painting very much the same way I’d bring myself emotionally to a scene. Meaning, you let go of the intellectual side of the process and let your emotions lead you and ride that wave to the end. My acting coach called that part of the process, “Dropping out of your head and into your heart.” I think that’s where the unexpected happens in a piece which can be exciting, surprising and inspired versus being exclusively intellectual thought out.

8. Please describe how your works have been influenced by political and social issues?

I think Nina Simone said it best, “An artist’s duty is to reflect the times.” I think when most artists create political pieces, they choose social or political subjects that fire them up on a personal level. When Proposition 8 passed, being a member of the gay community, I was devastated. I channeled those feelings and I created a piece using pages from the play, “Angels In America with pages from The Bible.” As a woman, I’ve made pieces involving feminist messaging and commentary on issues such as pay inequality. One of the best parts of being an artist is using your creative lens as your voice when it comes to social /political issues. For me personally, it’s a healthy way to channel my frustration with the inequalities of the world and yet also to celebrate our victories as a society as well.

9. How long have you been an artist? What inspired you to leave the film industry and pursue art?

I think artist are born. It’s how you innately process the world around you. That said, I’ve been painting professionally for 7 years.

Part of the beauty of working in performing arts and film is the collaborative aspect of the work. But there came a time in my life where I was deeply drawn to the solitude of painting. I was drawn to creating a body of work that was completely my own experience. As an actor, you often have to wait to act. You have to wait to be cast in a project and your often don’t get to have the experience of playing every character you’re drawn to simply because of casting. With painting, I can create any painting I want whenever I want. Even if it doesn’t sell, I will still always have had the experience of creating it. Also with painting, there is no outside collaboration, direction, or editing and I adore that. There came a point with opportunities as a painter where I needed to make a decision about where I wanted to focus my time and energy. At that time my heart was clearly in the studio. I knew I needed to be in the studio full-time to thoroughly commit to repetition, and explore techniques. So I left the stage for the studio and I’m glad I did. But life has a funny way of circling back around. I’ve recently been thinking very hard about getting back on stage or in front (maybe even behind) the camera again. We’ll see.

10. What are your goals that you would like to achieve as an artist?

I’m always looking to improve my technique and break through to the next level. As an artist, my ultimate goal is to create work that moves and connects with people. I’d like to expand my skills to other mediums as well, specifically sculpting. I’d always like to be the artist who’s work is recognized before they are, like an Agnes Martin or Cy Twombly. I’d love to see my work exhibited more internationally and I’d love to one days see my work in museum. Most of all, I want to be seen on the same level as my male counter parts.