ASH ARMENTA
ARTIST// PRINTMAKER// COLLABORATIVE PRINTMAKING// ART ED.
Artist Bio
Ash Armenta is an artist from California who works in printmaking and sculptural installations. They are a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, earning their Masters of Arts in 2021 and MFA in 2022. Ash completed a two year program specializing in fine art lithography at Tamarind Institute and received the title of Tamarind Master Printer in 2017. They received their Bachelor of Art at The University of California Santa Cruz in 2011 with a concentration in Printmaking.
Ash utilizes most forms of traditional printmaking practices. They are currently interested in following a line of inquiry that asks how interpersonal relationships with self and community can be visualized? Ash addresses these questions through creating two and three dimensional printed work and sculptural installations that utilize sound and light.
Ash was the 2022-23 Thurber Artist in Residence, a year-long studio residency in partnership with the Madison Arts Commission. They workshop-assisted at Tandem Press 2019-2020. In 2017, Ash applied their lithographic skillet post Tamarind institute as a Research Fellow for the Frederick Hammersley Institute at the Getty Museum Archives. In 2018, Ash opened Little Giant Collective, a member-owned cooperative print studio in Santa Cruz, Ca. With a passion for sharing studio practice, Ash taught printmaking at Kala Institute in Berkeley 2017-2019.
Ash is passionate about teaching the beautiful practice of studio printmaking and has lectured at UW-Madison: Intro to Digital Art, Screenprint, and Relief Printmaking at UW-Madison. They have given artist talks at UC Santa Cruz, University of New Mexico, University of Kansas, and SGCI Printmaking conferences. Outside of art academia, they also enjoy teaching short form studio courses that range from printmaking to painting, drawing, and most recently kite making.
Ash is currently accepting inquiries for artwork acquisitions/ installations, guest lecturing, short form artist residencies, and guest-artist collaborations. Their current collaborator is the City of Madison in a permanent sculptural installation project .
Artist Statement
My studio practice and research asks how to depict human emotional connectivity. How can interpersonal relationships with self and community be visualized? How do we heal and celebrate ourselves? My work insists that there is a connection constantly present in ourselves, our community, our past and present. My conceptual thesis considers ‘queering’ as world building practice central to informing our core of being. This takes shape for me as a daily exercise of seeing, listening, and reflecting. I am witness to a universe within myself and others, and in turn create portraits of that quietly eminent power.
While considering the sometimes codified nature of a queer experience, I relate geometric patterns and shapes to feelings of desire and connection, imagining how the transmission of emotion can be visually represented in space through light and color. I explore these concepts utilizing most forms of traditional printmaking, (screenprinting, relief woodcut, lithography, monoprinting) through creating 2D and 3D printed work and sculptural installations that incorporate sound, light and cast shadow.
Connecting with my community through material and media is also a large component of my artist practice and informs the world building in my solo studio time. I enjoy collaborating with other artists to connect others with printmaking while developing my professional practice as an artist, instructor, writer, and researcher.
