Interview with Ashely Love

Ashley Love is a contemporary pop surrealist illustrator whose art often juxtaposes traditional femininity and nihilism. Ashley’s work is defined by her red and dramatic details. Salt Lily recently had the privilege to interview Ashely about her impressive body of work. 

How did you start doing art? 

My mom was a painter and artist. I definitely picked up a lot of stuff from her. I would always use her material and paints. Then like most pre-teens, I got really into anime, so I was drawing anime. Then I got bored with anime, it seems like there is only so much you can do. At that point in my life, I just needed something different. I started exploring and doing more weird stuff. I started getting more into surrealism and started researching art history and drawing from that. It just kind of went from there. 

How did art turn into a career for you? 

I was in school studying game design, and my partner and I had bought a house the year before. We didn’t want to move, and all the jobs are in California, New York, or big cities. I mean we love big cities, but we didn’t want to move after we had just bought our house. We had settled in and there weren’t really any jobs here in Salt Lake. The ones that were here were leaving at the time when I graduated. I was going to try to work for Disney Avalanche and do 3D modeling, but then they just completely dissolved the same semester I was graduating. I was like that’s cool, awesome. A lot of indie studios have to start on your own or know somebody and do a lot of networking. I started doing festivals and conventions and started selling my own artwork. It was just my stuff I guess and it worked out better than I anticipated. I just started doing that. 

Where does your style come from?

I try to experiment a lot. People say that I have a really distinct style but I don’t always see it myself, because I’m always trying to do different things. I have a lot of styles that I use I guess. I just try to pull in different elements of things that I’m interested in. I like studying art history. I was an art history major for a little bit. That didn’t work out. I started with anime so there’s a little bit of that in there, which I try to distance myself from but I always keep coming back to it. 

What are some of your favorite animes? 

I love weird movies. There’s this one called Angel’s Egg. I love Final Fantasy and all of that. 

Who are some artists who influence you the most? 

Gustav Klimt. I love Gustav Klimt. Anything that was the turn of the century like Symbolism, that sort of era and the Surrealists after that. I love Leonora Carrington who was a Surrealist in the ‘30s and ‘40s. She lived to be ninety-something years old. She passed away in 2011. She had an amazing career of just painting and she has these weird short stories that I just love and am super fascinated by. 

There’s a lot of pinks and reds in your work. Is that intentional? I’m just really drawn to it. I don’t know, it’s hard to explain. I just always like painting with pink and red. The colors appeal to me. 

I also noticed you have a lot of crosses in your work. 

I just like upside-down crosses. I mean I’m an atheist and I listen to a lot of metal so that’s kind of just part of the aesthetic. I've had people come to my tables at Comic-Con wearing a metal shirt and I’ll be like ‘oh, sick I love that band’ and my table will be all pink. It’s kind of interesting because at first glance my table display may be super pink and whatever, but if I engage with someone and they come up and actually look at my stuff they will find something they like. Or something they want to get for someone else. If you look a little closer you might see something different. 

I like how feminine it looks

Yeah, I like cute things and frilly things. I try to surround myself with that sort of thing. I’m always trying to paint stuff that I would like to see painted. 

What’s your favorite project you’ve done so far? 

Probably the calendar. I really enjoyed doing the calendar, because it was something that I did myself and was really proud of. I almost gave up halfway through. I was like ‘fuck this’. I didn’t have the ability or the materials to do it, but I still somehow managed to like make it work. 

Tell us more about the Calendars you created. 

I wanted to do something that was interactive and had a sticker sheet. Something that people could personalize and sort of make it their own. I designed all the illustrations and stickers. It was really ambitious though I wanted to have them done in time for the Craft Lake Holiday Market in Ogden. I wanted to assemble it all myself so I had to figure that out. It was worth it.

What’s your favorite even that you’ve tabled at? 

I love Craft Lake City every year that I’ve done it. It was also my first event that I did that was entirely me at a table like my own booth. I did a shared table before at an anime convention which was one ,but it’s different when it’s entirely your stuff. 

What advice would you give to new emerging artists? 

I get a lot of questions from new artists who are just starting out. If there is anything I can put out there would be the advice to maybe to reconsider your ideas of success and what success means. A lot of people think success means having a lot of followers and a bunch of other stuff doesn’t actually matter. Consider what you find to be successful. 

How do you define success? 

Just seeing people’s faces light up when they come to my table at events. When I see people smiling I know that I’ve done my job. Just seeing people happy to see my artwork makes me happy. 

View more of Ashley’s work on her Website, Instagram, and Facebook