Ava Drutman
Throughout her young life, Ava was singled out to display her creations; however, she felt her artistic perspective was something so personal that she did not feel comfortable sharing it with others. Although she began college as an Art major, she changed her major and altered her life course to become a teacher of English, which was also her passion. This choice ended her formal training.
Over the years, she would take a Life Drawing or Watercolor class; however, most of the time, she painted and drew for herself and rarely showed it to anyone. It was during a Life Drawing class that she experienced a perspective that has become the focus of her work: the intertwining of the human body and nature. She recalls, “I was sketching a model, and I kept seeing mountain ranges within her body. During my next visit to the studio, the hips of another model were transformed into a mountain as I studied her shape. And soon the commonality of these images was inseparable." Most recently, her experimentation has led her to use watercolor paints and pencils on canvas as well as using them to transform her photographs of trees, which she has printed on watercolor paper.
During COVID, while walking or hiking, she began to photograph uncommon formations on a tree or other natural phenomenon. When I would return home, "I often edited my photos, and during that process, I kept seeing humans or parts of the human body within the images.” Since then, she has combined these mediums as she experiments with her vision of how landscape and the human body intertwine.
Some might consider her paintings surreal. An art lover has said, “Ava’s work is haunting. You can stare at it and continually see new images.”