Ashley Cecil is a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based artist specializing in paintings and sculptural works of flora and fauna that illustrate connections between the natural world and its human inhabitants. Her love affair with all things organic and wild blossomed as the result of studying landscapes with accomplished master painters in London while earning her master’s degree at the Sotheby’s Institute of Art, immersing herself in nature-inspired decorative arts collections in European museums, and painting from live observation at conservation institutions such as the National Aviary.

Her fervor for painting has landed Ashley many amazing opportunities including a six-month artist residency at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, participating in Labverde (a residency program in the Amazon rainforest), creating a commissioned artwork for Oxfam America that was exhibited at a United Nations convention on climate change, and talking face-to-face with Barack Obama about thriving as an artist entrepreneur.

It was the confluence of these nature-based residency projects and becoming a mother that inspired Ashley’s most recent work, which draws parallels between the oppression of women and the domination of nature. These paintings are deeply emotional and intuitive reflections on the harm we inflict on nature as well as the tender side of our relationship with it. The aim of the work is to endear you to the women and wildlife that will determine the future of an entire generation.