Art often requires the viewer to take a step back to view the work in its entirety, but University of Iowa Studio Arts MFA 2022 alumnus Brooks Cashbaugh’s piece, Collapsing Together, invites the viewer to take a closer look. Among over 500 submissions nationwide, Cashbaugh’s oil painting landed him a spot as one of 40 finalists in the AXA Art Prize competition.

AXA Art Prize is a nation-wide undergraduate and graduate student art competition open to any style of figurative paintings, drawings, and prints. Figurative in this contest includes depictions of people that can be recognizable, interpretive, or abstract. The finalists of the competition will have their work displayed in both the virtual and live galleries hosted by AXA Art Prize with the first and second place contestants winning a monetary prize. Cashbaugh’s entered piece depicts a low contrast image of himself, his wife, and his dog coming together at their kitchen table, but this scene may not be recognizable right away to the viewer.

“I used a lot of very light paint and a lot of low contrast in my piece,” Cashbaugh explains. “This creates both an overwhelming and obliterating sense of light that obscures the figures and delays the recognition of another human body in the painting.”

When looking at the works surrounding his piece on the AXA Art Prize top 40 finalists page, Cashbaugh’s painting features a light color scheme. Cashbaugh developed his style by altering photos from his camera in Photoshop. He takes images and plays with exposure and contrast, changing a recognizable picture of someone into a blend of over-exposed colors and shapes. Cashbaugh describes digital art as a huge part of his process as the digital distortion serves as a basis for his physical paintings.

“My paintings ask the viewer to consider at what point they can recognize another human being which can be both a visual challenge and also a practice of empathy,” Cashbaugh says. “The low contrast and limited visibility in my paintings pose questions about how much we look for other people’s humanity, how we can miss it on the first pass, and how our brains make sense of the world on an emotional level before a more logical level.”

These ideas and themes carried over into Cashbaugh’s thesis, “Here We Are Dancing,” presented in spring of 2022. His showcase featured his piece, Collapsing Together, as well as a collection of oil paintings highlighting himself, his wife, and close friends in their domestic spaces.

Through his art Cashbaugh aims to explore the murkiness of human life and the extensive in-between space of celebration and tragedy. His art depicts regular people with complicated emotions in the unglamorous moments of life. When speaking about his thesis, Cashbaugh described his body of work as “pieces of a shared story” that don’t reveal the entire story all the way, leaving the viewer to create their own narrative about the piece.

“There is a lot of art that explores the either really good or really bad moments and I’m looking for something in that middle ground,” Cashbaugh reflects. “I am leaving a selective amount open to the viewer and asking them to recognize a certain humanity. My art allows many possible reads that come back to this idea that we are all complex, tender creatures existing in a harsh and unforgiving world that makes it hard to see each other.”

When working on his showcase, Cashbaugh considered his time viewing art virtually during the beginning of the pandemic. The differences he noticed between viewing art online versus in-person inspired him to create work that celebrates the physical experience art can create. His low contrast pieces are more difficult to photograph and view on a screen which in turn rewards those who see the artwork in person.

As a graduate student, Cashbaugh received the Ester G. Madison Scholarship and the Mildred Pelzer-Lynch Graduate Fellowship which aided him in focusing attention to creating his thesis collection. Cashbaugh reflects that his time at the University of Iowa has helped him “develop trust in his artistic point of view,” allowing him to follow his own instincts and judgments that strengthened his artistic voice. He continues his flourishing career in art as a lecturer and gallery coordinator at Cornell College in Mt. Vernon, Iowa this fall.

Along with Cashbaugh, University of Iowa alumnus, Juan Correa’s piece Calladito Te Ves Más Bonito is featured as part of the 40 finalists in the AXA Art Prize competition. Both he and Cashbaugh have a chance at winning the $10,000 first place prize or the $5,000 second place prize. Winners of the competition are chosen by a select panel of artists and will be announced in November. More information regarding the competition can be found here.