Murray State's Digital Commons

Collection Title

Ash McIntyre Art399 Portfolio

Author/Artist Name

Ashlynn Eve McIntyreFollow

Files

Academic Level at Time of Creation

Senior

Date of Creation

Fall 12-7-2024

Artist Statement

Artist Statement

Ash Eve McIntyre

I create figural work exploring themes of object-human relationships in the context of childhood trauma and its aftermath. The works are made using a variety of media, including wood, ceramic, paint, and even found objects such as stuffed animals. The same craft techniques that are used to create comfort within domestic settings, I utilize to give care to the figures.

In the work, there is an emphasis on comfort and platonic love in my work. Stuffed animals are used in my sculptures to relate back to both domesticity and physical comfort. While the works represent the traumatized individual, the tone of the pieces are generally of emotional recovery and resilience. In this context, elements of ideal domesticity such as stuffed animals and hand-made clothing express realistic and achievable forms of happiness.

Many of my works reference the Greek mythological stories, like those from Ovid’s Metamorphosis, in which characters often undergo a transformation into an object or animal after experiencing a traumatic event. This transformation creates a paradox in which the character both survives and dies. In Ovid’s recounting of Greek myths, their new form is often supposed to protect them from further harm, but ultimately this objectification only further takes away their agency. These references to mythology allows the work to make obvious that traumatic loss of identity is a long-established but often unspoken human reality.

The relationship between psychological death and physical comfort in my work ultimately yields itself to these artworks acting as their own alternative to heaven. Despite surviving, their object bodies have been taxidermied into the state of eternal comfort.

Advisor/Mentor

Sarah Martin, Mike Martin

Description

My art is primarily figure sculpture. The work uses the body as a vehicle to discuss the transformative properties of identity. I combine hard sculptural form with hand-made textile elements such as needle felting, crochet, and sewing to complete the works. My works typically depict themes of physical transformation in relation to emotional resilience and interconnectedness, resulting in chimerical human forms reveling in their own objectness and material comforts.

My art has been directly influenced by my personal relationship with humanity as an autistic queer person with a dissociative disorder. I have a deep love for the figure, comfort, and spiritual imagery.

Photo Credit

Photos taken by artist

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.

Recommended Citation

McIntyre, Ashlynn Eve, "Ash McIntyre Art399 Portfolio" (2024). Professional Practices (ART 399). 150.
https://digitalcommons.murraystate.edu/art399/150