As a young, Black Biracial Woman with Type II Bipolar Disorder from Toronto, Ashley T. has coined herself as the “Bi-Fecta”. She is a multidisciplinary artist who creates within the realms of visual art, literary art, and performance art. She uses art to ground and remind herself of the power she possesses to be a positive change in this world. Each piece she creates is a small chapter of her visual memoire. For more of Ashley’s work, check out her Instagram, Website or LinkTree.
Ashley T. is also part of the first cohort of Spotlight Scholarship Recipients! SKETCH recently spoke with Ashley about her practice and the importance of championing emerging Black artists.
SKETCH: How did your journey as an artist begin?
Ashley: My journey as an artist began a long time ago when I was a child. I was always attracted to the concept of “creation” and the beauty of combining different colours, shapes, and textures. Unfortunately, my art wasn’t heavily supported beyond my brother’s efforts and I was crushed by imposter syndrome. Because of the whiteness and maleness of fine art that was projected at me while I was in school, I gave up on art for years.
I still missed the feeling of creating, so I would occasionally paint and sketch as a form of personal therapy and coping strategies. However, I mostly kept my pieces to myself for fear of rejection and defeating the therapy that art gave me. For years I created art but refused to call myself an artist because of the singular image that was instilled in me, of what a “real” artist is.
In 2018, I grew a bit of confidence and shared some of my newer paintings with some friends, who passed on the images to others, which led to me selling my first few paintings. From there, I started participating in local art fairs and sold more pieces. My confidence grew and I toyed with the idea of referring to myself as an artist to the point that I applied to the SKETCH Indie Studio residency, something I never before fathomed doing. I was accepted for the 2020 Winter cohort and was surrounded with other folks who had fascinating and creative minds who called themselves artists and helped me realize I was worthy of doing the same.
Since then, my confidence has grown and I have been much less afraid to show my work to others and apply for different artistic opportunities. I no longer fear rejection, but instead see it as a learning opportunity within my art.
Colour Rhythm, 2021
SKETCH: In addition to being a visual artist, you also work as a stage performer – headlining shows like the Bi+ Pride Party in 2020. How does your artistry shift between disciplines?
Ashley: I would say that the only thing that really shifts between my disciplines are the mediums. My artistry is fluid between my visual, literary, and performance art. My art is all about navigating the world as a Black person, a Biracial person, a Woman, a Bisexual Woman, a Black Biracial, Bisexual Woman with Type II Bipolar Disorder. My art focuses on the navigation, the coping, and the survival of my identities in a world that doesn’t want them unless exploiting them.
Whether I am using a brush on a canvas, a pen on a page, or my body on stage, my messages and intentions remain consistent with the objective to free myself and my identities of oppression and speak out against my traumas.
Colourful Existence for Soulpepper Theatre’s Queer Youth Cabaret, 2021
SKETCH: How does intersectionality present itself in your work, both from a process and product perspective?
Ashley: As I previously mentioned, all of my work speaks to my intersecting identities. From a process perspective, I reflect on the feelings and emotions that need to be expressed and how I feel I need to express them, either through paint, mixed media, written word, or physical movement. I create layers within my work to include juxtaposition, innuendo, and even sometimes pun to convey the complexities of my intersections. For example I speak a lot on Queer issues, but delve deeper into the in-fighting within the Queer commnunity and how it exludes Black bodies, fat bodies, and women.
From a product perspective, the titles of my pieces don’t shy away from the message. A lot of my work reflects on the hypocrisy of society’s charitable presence, creating pieces that at first glance are happy and colourful, but if someone takes the time to truly see or hear the story the piece is sharing, they will see the pain and trauma that truly exists beneath the happy coat of fresh paint society drowns everything in.
A performance that I did for Soulpepper Theatre’s Queer Youth Cabaret: QueerFutures 2099 in June of this year was called “Colourful Existence” and it combined my visual, literary, and performance art all on one stage to speak to Queer liberation and all of its intersections including race, gender, and body presentation.
Together, 2021
SKETCH: Community is a large part of your practice, can you speak to this aspect of your work a little more? How does art contribute to community building?
Ashley: Community is a large part of my practice because community is suicide prevention. Community doesn’t need to be a group of one hundred people gathering to chant “Rah, rah! We’re all XYZ!” Community can appear in the simplest form as one other person simply saying, showing, or expressing: “I see you; I’ve got you.” When someone facing dark things in their life has that sort of light to hold onto, it can change their world for the better.
I have survived a great deal of darkness and trauma in my life and often had to do it all alone because of the Black Woman Superhero fallacy. I know what that kind of pain and loneliness can do to someone, that’s why I create art and projects that show others “I see you, I’ve got you” – to help give them the light and confidence to seek help, to create, to fight back.
Art is one of the oldest forms of communication and it doesn’t matter your dialect – drawing, lyrics, dance, or theatre – we all have an understanding of it and this brings us together. Art contributes to community building by speaking for us when our real voices go unheard.
BLM, 2021
SKETCH: Why is it essential to support Black artists?
Ashley: It is essential to support Black artists 365 days of the year, not just in February and sometimes on Emancipation Day when folks remember. It is essential to support Black artists in real ways that positively affect their lives and their art by giving them fairly paid opportunities and not asking them to perform for “exposure”, by giving them access to resources and exhibition opportunities, by highlighting them for their art and not just their Blackness in order to fill a diversity quota. It is essential to pay Black artists for their emotional labour when asking them to perform to, speak to, or alleviate the anti-Blackness within the arts. It is essential to stop speaking on behalf of Black artists if you are not Black. It is essential to stop paying into and collaborating with companies that are known for their anti-Black procedures and policies. It is essential to support Black artists by understanding that anti-Black oppression and racism isn’t capped by the use of the N-word. It is essential to support Black artists by understanding nuance and optics and how they affect the elevation or the degradation of Black artists.
It is essential to not only support Black artists because it is the bare minimum that can be done to counteract the obstacles facing Black artists in everyday life, but it is absolutely essential to support Black artists the right way.
SKETCH: What were you hoping to accomplish or pursue when applying for a Spotlight Scholarship?
Ashley: I have a series of new pieces that I have sketched out and wanted to buy materials for that the scholarship really helped with, but my main objective when I applied for the Spotlight Scholarship was to use it to help me take up more space literally and figuratively speaking. I want to create work on giant canvases and I want to display my work in a solo exhibition.
Inexplicable Maze, 2021
SKETCH: How has the Scholarship supported your artistry over the past year?
Ashley: The Spotlight Scholarship has allowed me to buy a number of materials to work on six new visual artwork series. I am hoping upon their completion to use any remaining funds to put together a short film about navigating the healthcare system as a Black Queer Woman.
SKETCH: What is the most important thing for emerging Black artists to know, or have access to?
Ashley: The most important thing for emerging Black artists to have access to is confidence. Have the confidence to know you deserve to call yourself an artist, the confidence to know you deserve more resources, and the confidence to know you deserve to be seen, heard, and take up space.
SKETCH is currently accepting donations to support another cohort of emerging Black artists through our Spotlight Scholarship campaign.
Learn more at sketch.ca/spotlightscholarships!
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