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About Alumni
Class Notes
Known in collectors’ circles as a modern “Andrea Warhol,” Ashley Longshore ’99 is making waves in the art world as she builds a creative empire around her bold and provocative work.
The New Orleans-based painter and entrepreneur owns the Longshore Studio Gallery, where she exhibits her paintings and other pieces that depict pop culture, Hollywood glamour and American consumerism.
“I’m a pop artist exploring my role as an American woman and how greed and money and society play a role in all that,” Longshore says. “My career as an artist right now is incredible. I’ve got so much opportunity. My main struggle in life is my time management, making sure that I’m still making time to honor my art.”
That art has caught the eye of high-profile Wall Street collectors and celebrity art aficionados like Blake Lively, Selma Hayek and Penelope Cruz. The pieces available on her website sell for anywhere from $250 for a decorative collectors plate to $27,000 for an inlay table made from Taj Mahal marble. She’s also infused her creativity and style into the fashion world through collaborations with brands like Anthropologie and Chloe.
Though she majored in English literature, it was during her years at UM that Longshore first pursued her passion for painting.
“I’m happy to say that I first started painting while I was at the University of Montana,” she says. “I think back to my time at UM, when I wouldn’t go out on Fridays and Saturdays because I would paint. It was something about the security of those mountains that really made me feel safe, like I could express myself.”
At first glance, you’d probably never guess Montana was ever a muse for Longshore’s flamboyant pieces. Born and raised in Montgomery, Alabama, Longshore came to UM and Missoula to escape the traditional traps of Southern society. The laid-back allure of Montana still serves as a foil to the lavish, over-the-top lifestyles that her paintings often satirize.
“Honestly, I’d never been somewhere in my life where all of that fashion and branding and all of that sort of thing really weren’t the center of society, and I think that’s why I was so drawn to come to Montana,” Longshore says. “Montana was really a place where nature could heal me, and also a place where I could explore my own thoughts about what all that stuff really meant.”
She also credits UM for providing her a broad liberal arts education that helps her build rapport with her clients now.
“For me, getting such a great liberal arts education has really enabled me to speak to my clients about all sorts of things, whether it be oceanography, biblical studies, Native American studies – anything like that,” she says. “Sometimes when you’re in college, you don’t really understand the beauty of that.”
Every once in a while, Longshore still finds herself in awe that, over the course several years, she went from struggling to sell a $500 piece she painted on a floor in Missoula to launching and cultivating a multimillion-dollar art enterprise.
“That just goes to show you how grand life is when you really go for any opportunity that’s around you, with every bit of passion you have in your body,” she says. “Anything can happen.”
