Ashley Benton

Ashley is a landscape artist currently residing in Mississippi. She was born in
Las Cruces, New Mexico and later moved to Norman, Oklahoma where she spent the
rest of her childhood. She began painting landscapes more frequently upon
graduating from the University of Mississippi in 2020, focusing primarily on the sky,
and how light hit the clouds. Light and movement have always influenced her, but
recently, she has been influenced by how a certain place feels, painting based on
that feeling, and creating an impressionistic style influenced by Claude Monet. She
works with oil paints mainly due to their slow-drying process. This allows Ashley to
slowly work in colors, evaluate, and change the painting as she analyzes. Ashley is
especially inspired by nature—particularly moments in a landscape where the light
uniquely strikes the scenery. She tends to wait for a piece to dry completely, and then
slowly add light layers to certain areas of the landscape to add depth and
intentionality.

Her landscapes capture a feeling of that particular place using vibrant colors
and wispy brushstrokes often being described as soft, ethereal, and bright. To her, a
vast landscape enhances her awareness of her small place in the world—that it is not
the scenery that gets to partake in her life, but rather that she has the pleasure of
partaking in something much greater than herself. Ashley paints in her backroom
studio in Jackson, Mississippi. While Ashley pursues her growing creative business,
she works part-time as a Display Artist for her local Anthropologie.