Walk into the homes of many coastal Alabama art collectors and you have probably already seen the earlier Ashley Terrell: ethereal landscapes and abstracts in muted colors, painted with big brushes so the shapes have no edges, built up in layer after layer of thin acrylic and finished with a clear glaze that makes the colors pop and creates depth. That is the Terrell that collectors along the Gulf Coast have known for years.
Get ready, because Terrell has chosen to change.
An ‘Aha’ Moment in Malaga
The turning point came last spring on a trip to Malaga, Spain, where Terrell visited Pablo Picasso’s private collection at the museum connected to the artist’s birthplace. The cubist work spoke to her. It was an aha moment, she says, and she came home bubbling over with ideas, embarked on an entirely different path of creativity.
“I think I might be schizophrenic!” she laughs, describing the gap between the two bodies of work. Her new geometric abstracts have hard edges, flat shapes and a distinctly mid-century modern aesthetic — a universe away from the misty, layered canvases that made her name. She painted the first one just for herself and took it to Kim Kelly at Sophiella Gallery in Mobile to see what she thought. Kelly encouraged her to go with it, and the result was Terrell’s third solo show at the gallery, opening in early November.
The process for the new collection is meticulous. Terrell measures, then sketches while maintaining a pattern, draws it on the canvas using straight lines, and then fills in with color. It is all hand-done and very precise. She found, to her delight, that she loves coloring and staying within the lines — just like she did as a little girl with her coloring books.
A Career Built One Layer at a Time
Terrell’s foundation is more formal than many working artists’. She holds a degree in Art Education from the University of South Alabama, where she took every studio class available — drawing, painting, sculpture and ceramics — an education that exposed her to all aspects of art. After teaching art in the Mobile County Public Schools for five years, she became a freelance graphic artist, producing drawings for a stationery company called Original Creations.
When her three children left the nest, she painted as a hobby, and as she grew as an artist, so did her following. Home shows led to gallery shows and subsequent success, both artistically and professionally. “I took a leap of faith and never looked back,” she says.
That trajectory is familiar to many of the Gulf Coast’s working artists, but Terrell’s willingness to walk away from a successful style mid-career is what sets her apart. Collectors who fell in love with her glazes and soft shapes are now being invited to see a completely different artist, and the risk is paying off in attention and excitement.
The Show: Spectrum of Intent
The show, “Spectrum of Intent,” opened with a reception from 5 to 8 p.m. and hung for the month at Sophiella Gallery, 111 Dauphin Street in downtown Mobile. Mobile’s Art Walk, the second-Friday celebration that fills downtown galleries with collectors and strollers, presented another opportunity to see the calculated design strategy of the artist up close.
The geometric lines in color are fresh and bold, a delightful surprise for anyone familiar with Terrell’s earlier work. With roughly 30 new pieces on display, patrons could feel both the energy of the artist’s personality and the precision of her craft. The gallery itself, a renovated historic space in the heart of the entertainment district, has become one of downtown Mobile’s anchors for contemporary fine art, representing regional artists and working with collectors directly and through interior designers.
Why the Change Matters
There is a lesson in Terrell’s pivot for anyone watching the regional art scene. Galleries thrive when their artists take risks, and collectors along the Gulf Coast have proven willing to follow. Terrell’s personality is exemplified in the new paintings: full of life, seeking fun and adventure, very comfortable with who she is as a person and as an artist. A childhood friend of the artist puts it this way: Terrell may not have always stayed within the lines, but these new lines are a defining moment for her.
The mid-century modern movement that inspires the new work — the clean lines, the flat planes of color, the geometry — has enjoyed a sustained revival in American design taste, and Mobile collectors are no exception. Homes across the coastal area increasingly mix contemporary and mid-century pieces with Southern antiques, and Terrell’s new work slots neatly into that conversation.
Her earlier work, meanwhile, has not disappeared. The landscapes and abstracts with their muted colors and glaze-popped depth remain in collectors’ homes across the coastal area, and they now read as one chapter of an artist’s evolution rather than the whole story. Collectors who own a soft-edged Terrell own the before; the new geometric pieces are the after.
Following the Work
Terrell documents new paintings and works in progress on Instagram at @ashleyterrellart, where followers can watch the shift in real time. Sophiella Gallery, open midweek and by appointment and during downtown Mobile’s monthly Art Walk on Dauphin Street, continues to represent her work alongside a roster of Gulf Coast and regional artists.
For Mobile’s art community, the arrival of “Spectrum of Intent” was more than another gallery opening. It was proof that a homegrown artist — trained at South Alabama, seasoned in the public schools, seasoned in the commercial art world — can reinvent herself with confidence and find an audience waiting. The calculated design strategy of the new work rewards slow looking: measure, sketch, draw, fill, repeat, until a canvas becomes a precise composition of lines and color.
Patrons who attended the opening and Art Walk got to see the energy and excitement of both the artist and the craft. For those who missed it, Terrell’s work remains at Sophiella Gallery, and the story of an artist who found her voice twice — once in soft edges, once in hard ones — continues to unfold one precisely drawn line at a time.