Artist of the Month: Ashley Ayaquica

By Nicolaj Arroyo

Arts & Entertainment Editor

January 2022

Ashley Ayaquica is a senior who works in the art, music and theatre wings. Their visual art is just as striking as it is dark. Their work is done almost exclusively with charcoal, and almost always monochrome.

What is it you draw?

I draw people close to me sometimes myself- and try to portray their energy in my life.

Why do you like working with charcoal?

Charcoal gives instant payoff, and it’s very expressive and complimentary to my mark-making.

Mark-making?

Every artist has their unique marks when drawing, it doesn’t really matter what medium they use, you can see their style and energy through their strokes.

How would you describe your style?

I tend to have an unfinished yet ‘finished’ look. I keep it messy, and only clean up with intention.

So it’s more like a metaphorical negative space?The mess is what takes the form of the subject, and the clean is what makes up the space surrounding it?

It depends on who I’m drawing. When I’ve drawn myself, I subconsciously made it messier around myself, and didn’t realize it

until I compared it to my previous pieces.

It sort of speaks to the uncertainty one has of the image of the self in one’s own mind!

In a way, yes. The energy in my self-portrait, in the mark-making and the gesture, along with the minimal facial expression shown, shows that…

We had a short conversation here.

With the chaos surrounding me, and me covering my face… I looked kinda…Scared.

Scared?

Yeah, scared. While I was making that drawing, I wanted to express a big part of who I am, and that’s someone who had to fend for themselves, while everything around them was chaotic.

Let’s talk about portraits of others you have done. Ashley has a subject that appears most in their artwork by the name of Andie. Andie appears the most in Ashley’s portfolio, with three different portraits compared to the other subjects.

Lately, Andie has been a close friend of mine. His energy is very much present in my life, and he is just nice to draw. He has nice features. He is a stubborn model, but he has a very unique energy.

Would you say he is your muse?

Yes.