Ashley Longshore
Sarah Ashley Longshore is a Louisiana-based painter, gallery owner, and entrepreneur. She is the owner of the Longshore Studio Gallery, located on Magazine Street in New Orleans. Longshore's art focuses on pop culture, Hollywood glamour, and American consumerism and has been compared to the artwork of Andy Warhol.
She has been recognized as a "modern Andy Warhol" by the New York Post, and was on Brit + Co’s list of "16 Female Artists You Should Know", and visiting her studio was listed as one of the "15 Best Things to do In New Orleans" by Condé Nast Traveler in 2018. She has worked with celebrity art collectors including Blake Lively, Salma Hayek, Eli Manning, and Penélope Cruz. In 2018, The New York Times described Longshore as an "avatar of pop feminism to thousands of followers".
Early life
Sarah Ashley Longshore was born in Montgomery, Alabama to Spencer Longshore III, the president and CEO of Time and Space Inc., an advertising sales company. She was exposed to the arts as a child and took lessons in tap dancing, ballet, theatre, piano, jazz, and voice. Following her graduation from Brenau Academy, an all-girl boarding school located in Gainesville, Georgia, Longshore obtained a bachelor of arts in English literature from the University of Montana.Career
While a student at the University of Montana, Longshore took a semester off to paint. Longshore is a self-taught artist, and spent much of her early career reproducing Picasso paintings. She put together a portfolio and began showing her work to galleries around Missoula, Montana. Her first art show was at a small town gallery.In 2011, Longshore’s artwork was featured in the film.
Longshore’s collection entitled “Sugar Face” opened at La Boîte à Epice, a New York City-based spice store and art gallery owned by chef Lior Lev Seracarz in March 2012. Later that year, Longshore was commissioned by Chloé to create a painting that depicted the fashion house’s history. The painting was displayed at an event to celebrate their 60th Anniversary at Art Basel Miami.
In September 2013, Longshore held a pop-up art exhibition entitled “Fashionably Late” at the Pop Up Art Gallery in New York City. The showing was held after New York’s Fashion Week 2013. She was also among eleven artists featured at Art Inside, an October 2013 exhibition at the Baur au Lac in Zurich, Switzerland. The exhibition was curated by Gigi Kracht, who sits on the International Director’s Council of New York City’s Guggenheim Museum.
Longshore was featured on Vogue.com in Spring 2014, where she spoke about the role of Instagram as an emerging platform for art sales. Longshore involves her fans through social media, engaging them in her creative process. She avoids the traditional gallery system, which charges artists to display their work, and said that galleries "screw up the pricing of art". Aside from using Instagram as a sales platform, Longshore also involves her fans through social media, engaging them in her creative process.
Forbes referred to Longshore as a leading business woman of the South in September 2014. In October of the same year, The New York Post featured Longshore in an article about her "Greed, Money and Status" series, which showcases and symbolizes American consumerism and luxury. The series included a remake of the American Gothic painting, portraits of Gordon Gekko and Alec Baldwin's character in Glengarry Glen Ross, and a chair which was stuffed with $500,000 in shredded cash. In 2015, Longshore sold over $1 million worth of art. CUE Magazine recognized Longshore as a New Orleans Style Maker in 2016. In August 2016, Longshore's office and studio was featured on Elle Decor. Longshore partnered with fashion brand Cle de Peau and designed a line of home goods in 2016. In February 2017, she released her first book You Don't Look Fat, You Look Crazy: An Unapologetic Guide to Being Ambitchous, as "tongue-in-cheek guide to living an "ambitchous" life". In November 2018, she created artwork for to support the launch of Gucci’s “Do It Yourself” initiative.
In 2019, Longshore partnered with Maybelline to create lipstick packaging based on her artwork. She also partnered with Eric Buterbaugh for her first LA show, which took place at his personal gallery.
In January 2020, nine of Longshore‘s pop art pieces were printed on fabric which was then used by the design contests on season 18 of Project Runway to create unique garments to walk the runway. Fabric printed with butterflies was used in the winning design. Longshore was also featured as a guest judge on the episode.
Artwork
Longshore’s art has been exhibited in America and Europe. Her work has been featured in magazines such as Forbes, Elle, Vogue, Marie Claire Belgium, Elle Décor Belgium, Vie Magazine, SPUR, Hollywood Reporter, and Matchbook Magazine. Art New Orleans featured a Longshore painting on the cover of its Spring 2013 issue and Vie Magazine featured her art on the cover of its May 2013 issue., 2014
In 2014, Longshore announced a collaboration with friend and long-time client Blake Lively for Lively's lifestyle e-commerce site Preserve. Longeshore and Lively began working together at Longshore's studio shortly before Lively's site launched. Longshore was one of the first featured artisans on the site. Her pillows were one of the top items on the site as featured by Elle Decor and Vogue. That same year, Longshore created an art series called “Tantrum,” which included a depiction of the Vogue editor-in-chief watching screaming children. Later that year, she created a holiday exhibit for Kirna Zabete featuring “Jingle My Bells.” Kirna Zabete has 20 pieces of Longshore’s work exhibited.
In 2015, Longshore was featured by Forbes on a list of 21 contemporary artists. That same year, Longshore’s work was also featured at the Cornell Museum in an exhibit titled “Bling: Art That Shines.” The collection included Longshore’s large-scale portraits highlighting celebrity excess. Her pieces “Audrey in Slipper Orchid Headdress” and “Subtleties Are Not Her Specialty” were among the featured works in the exhibit. In 2015, Longshore launched Artgasm, a direct-to-collector subscription program inspired by TuneCore, in which 250 members receive four pieces of art by Longshore a year for a fee.
In fall 2015, Longshore debuted a collection of satirical fashion portraits during New York Fashion Week. She became the first artist to secure a collaboration with the Bryant Park Hotel with a Longshore-designed suite featuring the collection of seven bold portraits of iconic names in fashion.
In January 2018, Longshore became the first solo female artist to exhibit at Bergdorf Goodman. As part of the exhibit, Longshore's work was placed in six different Bergdorf Goodman window displays on Fifth Avenue.
In March 2019 Longshore exhibited 37 paintings she created of iconic women in a one woman show at and as a commission for the Diane von Fürstenberg flagship store in the Meatpacking District of Manhattan in New York City in celebration of Women's History Month. Fürstenberg personally commissioned the paintings after meeting with Longshore in London. The series include portraits of such distinguished women as Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Jackie Kennedy, Cleopatra, Marlene Dietrich, Oprah Winfrey, Gloria Steinem, Michelle Obama, Elizabeth Taylor, Maya Angelou, Whitney Wolfe Herd, Rosa Parks, and Von Furstenberg herself, some dressed in the designer's signature prints.