Courtesy DeStefano’s paintings, like ‘The Apple Tree,’ are intended as a page from the scrapbook of the mind.

NAME: Ashley DeStefano, 25

BEST KNOWN FOR: Whimsical, colorful mixed-media collages incorporating fabrics, newspaper, text acrylic paint — “anything that will give me a different kind of pattern or texture or tone,” DeStefano said.

Her paintings are scrapbooks documenting the way “the human mind thinks in randomness,” she said. “Sometimes you see a flash of a picture of a friend, then you see a flash of a love letter you found from two years ago.”
Accordingly, she incorporates a hodgepodge of found objects, personal mementos and items she purchases, plus the occasional original poem.

Her work “Prayer for Peace” includes a religious bookmark she received in Catholic school set against lace from a shirt she wore to an art opening in 2005; “Delicate” features a photograph of Marilyn Monroe she found in an antique store surrounded by paint, cutouts and text.

Birds, symbolizing freedom, change and hope, are a common theme in DeStefano’s paintings. So is religion.

“I think painting is a really good outpouring of my personal relationship with God,” she said. “I want it to be seen, almost as a ministry tool to get people kind of thinking about somebody up there in the big blue sky.”

BACKGROUND: DeStefano grew up in New Braunfels; her mother is a seamstress and quilter, instilling in her the love of brightly patterned textiles.

Studying painting at Texas State University, DeStefano created abstract representations of still-life drawings she was doing of clothing.

“I got so bored with the clothing paintings that I needed something new,” she said. “So I added real fabric.”

CHECK HER OUT: “Bend down the branches: experiments in mixed media” is up at One9Zero6 Gallery, 1906 S. Flores St., through Saturday, May 3. Call (210) 227-5718 or go to 1906gallery.com.

Jessica Belasco | 210SA contributor