ABOUT THE ARTIST
Ash is a queer creative portrait photographer and digital composite artist studying at the Fashion Institute of Technology pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Photography and Related Medias. Their freelance work entails solely incorporating the LGBTQ+ community as their models, which they have been doing since 2020. In 2023, they interned under internationally awarded fashion, portrait, and event photographer Becky Yee, whose notable works include her projects Beyond Pink and Women In Color.
Ash has also worked as a school photographer for the 2021-2022 school year in New Jersey and New York, photographing individual students, staff, groups of classes, and sports teams. They had kicked off their freelancing career by working with the modeling agency LaCreme, most recently working fashion model X Hernandez.
ARTIST’S STATEMENT
Of all the flavors of queer that I’ve met through my highschool years and into adulthood, no two expressed themselves exactly the same. As we grow together I get to watch them blossom into their happiest, truest selves as they do the same for me. My photographic inspiration comes from my real world experiences after turning 21 and gaining access to bars, clubs, and other spaces where my peers and elders could be discovered.
Like my friends and others in my community, my work is vibrantly colorful and experimental, emphasizing queer beauty being a universal concept within the world I’m creating. My main photographic subjects are my friends and other queers that have crossed paths with me along the way with the goal to portray them the way I see them; radiating a joyous light that can only come from true self acceptance. My post production process references body and gender dysphoria with focused repetition on body parts that other gender-nonconforming people may have sensitivities about, then using them to enhance the photograph and turn it into an attractive spectacle.