Hunter Ash Paints the Color a Memory Leaves Behind

Ash treats abstraction as a kind of speech — "a special type of language," in her words, "one that is liberating and engaging with room for interpretation." She works in acrylic and oil on canvas, often pouring diluted pigment onto a canvas laid flat and building up layers of textured, deliberate marks. The process is meditative and reactive: each gesture answers the last. "Each act is in reaction to what I previously did," she says. "Each mark speaks so loudly on its own that it informs the next step of the story."

Originally from Basalt, Colorado, Ash earned a BFA in Studio Art from Baylor University (her degree exhibition showed at the Martin Museum of Art in 2018) and brought a graphic-design background with her. She landed in Austin in 2019 and works from a home studio. The grounding belief under all of it is disarmingly plain: "I have a deep belief that we are designed to create things."

Ash's paintings have traveled well beyond her studio — into the Austin Studio Tour, a residency at Suttle Lodge in Sisters, Oregon, and onto the walls of Kendra Scott stores and Kirksey Architecture, among other collections. For her, though, the work is as much a private practice as a public one: "As much as my art is a vehicle to communicate to a viewer," she says, "this is also a process that's about me and my ability to synthesize the world around me."

Her portfolio and available paintings live at hunter-ash.com, and she shares new work on Instagram at @hunterash.art. To buy originals, her work is carried by Austin Art Garage, with originals recently ranging roughly from $1,100 to $1,295.

About this spotlight: an independent, unpaid feature, written because we admire the work — drawn from public sources, including the artist's own statements, an EASTside Magazine profile, and Austin Art Garage. All artwork and images are the artist's; see the work in full via the links above.