Local contemporary artist and teacher Ashley Czajkowski uses her visions of nature, humans and how the two interact to promote social awareness through her photographic art.
Czajkowski, 29, was originally a pre-engineer student from Kansas who moved to Arizona in 2012 to attend Arizona State University, where she received her Masters of Fine Arts in photography last spring.
Czajkowski’s first solo show outside of an education setting, “Vestiges,” opened at local Roosevelt row gallery Eye Lounge on Third Friday, Feb. 19. Czajkowski said her inspiration for the show is just an extension of how she looks at the outside world.
“I’m interested in the nature-culture binary or like the tension between human experience and the rest of the natural world and how we intentionally place ourselves outside of what would be considered nature,” she said.
Growing up, Czajkowski said she had always been creative, but it wasn’t until her college years that she became interested in photography.
“From a really young age I always like making things, paint and draw,” Czajkowski said. “But I didn’t know I was interested in photography until my undergrad.”
While taking photography classes at Kansas’ Concordia State, she began to realize just what about the art form spoke to her.
“I fell in love with photography and its sort of relationship to time and space and reality, and I think about all of my work now as kind of evidentiary which is something photography really exemplifies,” Czajkowski said. “Photographs can be seen through these ways of capturing something.”
This inspiration started at a young age for Czajkowski, as she tried to keep up with social pressures.
“I think about gender construction and how femininity is placed much further from connection to nature than masculinity would be … so I think about that, and that’s mostly because that’s how I grew up. That’s the gender I learned to perform,” Czajkowski said.
Czajkowski said her art is more about bringing certain issues to light rather than fighting issues. She said she wanted to connect to something she had personally experienced, such as gender construction.
“I think as artists in general we tend to point at things … and often times it’s something that we have a personal investment in, so I think that’s something I definitely struggled with growing up is identifying with these expectations that were put on me,” she said.
Ellen Nemetz, a fellow Eye Lounge artist, said Czajkowski’s work is bringing conversation and visual experiences Eye Lounge has not had before.
“She has all the video work, which is just amazing, and she covers subject matter that hasn’t been covered,” Nemetz said. “I like her take on femininity and gender.”
“Vestiges” features both rudimentary skills and modern techniques used to create the pieces. Some of the works, like the video, “Enatic,” are an extension on Czajkowski’s thesis work, but others she started within the last year.
During her creative process Czajkowski said she would find things that inspired her and immediately need to create the piece with the idea still fresh in her mind.
“I’m definitely an intuitive maker, so I trust some sort of subconscious or instinct to make work and interpret afterwards,” Czajkowski said.
Czajkowski said the hardest part about being an artist is staying secure in the field.
“That’s definitely a huge part of it is finding a way to sustain yourself as an artist both financially but really creatively,” Czajkowski said. “Being able to continue to make the work and staying focused.”
Czajkowski’s exhibition at Eye Lounge runs through March 13. She said she hopes the audience will leave the show with more than just a picture.
“I think with all the work that I make, and I believe this about art in general, that it becomes most powerful when it can create an experience for viewers,” Czajkowski said. “An experience in which they sort of ask questions without actually necessarily providing all the answers, because for me it’s the most rewarding when I know something has stuck with the viewer after they’ve left.”
Contact the reporter at kayrstock@gmail.com
