Amy Ash combines industrial shellac and Tremclad with the delicacy of watercolours and silk canvases. The results are playful.

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Angie Kippers

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When Hampton artist Amy Ash makes a list of supplies, they aren't typically items that can be picked up at the art shop, but at a hardware or grocery store.

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The Boxer, Little Dan, mixed media, by Amy Ash.

Untitled, mixed media, by Amy Ash.

Hampton-based artist Amy Ash uses a variety of media to create layers and texture on canvas.

Tricks Six, A Fine Balance, mixed media, by Amy Ash.

Tricks Four, mixed media, mixed media, by Amy Ash

She uses Tremclad for black outlines of figures for its sheen and ability to affix to other mediums.

Shellac, wine and vinegar are also staples - shellac for the rich layering and glossy patina, wine and vinegar to separate paints, creating segments of different textures and colours.

The artist, whose works are represented at Trinity Galleries in Saint John, likes to experiment, working intuitively.

She combines these often unorthodox mixes of medium, playfully, creating a host of depths and layers.

Materials are sometimes chosen on a whim. She may incorporate both watercolour and oil paints, than add embroidered fabrics, appliqúes or sequins. She may tear a swatch of fabric, stitch new seams, then affix them to a delicate, silk canvas.

It's about what feels right. "In creating these works about play, I'm playing myself," she says.

The approach is natural for Ash, who is fascinated with childhood and works as a teacher for Centre for Youth Care, an organization that houses at-risk youth in the greater Saint John area, as well as District 6.

Many of her works are characterized by images of playful young girls. "They are nobody in particular," she says, but "everyone has a little girl in them."

She recently also incorporated a young boy figure, inspired by her uncle, in the work The Boxer, Little Dan.

"It is loosely based on an old photograph," she says.

While most of Ash's creations are fun and carefree, she says there's sometimes an underlying darkness about childhood.

In works Island One and Island Two, which includes a tear-faced girl amidst water imagery, for instance, there's a distinct sadness.

There is also the influence of Japan in her pieces. From 2004-07, Ash lived in Kagoshima, teaching English and working in an art co-operative. Some of the country's culture can be seen in the thin black lines she creates with a tiny paint brush, as well as the use of silk fabrics and beautiful Japanese papers for canvas - which she filled a suitcase with on her return to Canada.

"I love the edges, it so esthetic, organic," she says.

Ash's work can be viewed at www.trinitygalleries.ca and at the gallery at 128 Germain St.

Angie Kippers is copy editor of Salon.