With its braided mane and lifelike details, Ashanti Pope’s painting captures a stallion standing quietly in a grassy field. The junior emerging media student’s artwork, “Bright and Braided,” was selected for the American Artists Professional League’s national online exhibit, which showcased 175 artists from July 31 to Sept. 30.

“I’m in that phase right now; I’m learning how to draw animals to study fur and textures,” Pope said. “When I was younger, I avoided drawing fur because it felt like too much, but then I decided to challenge myself.”

The American Artists Professional League is a fine art organization that was founded in 1928 in Manhattan. AAPL promotes realism art and currently has around 600 members throughout the United States. 

The organization recently opened its first-ever national online exhibit, where both members and non-members from across the country could apply. Pope had been familiar with the exhibit and decided to apply after learning about the benefits of getting involved.

“I reached out to another artist from the AAPL because it turns out there was another artist in Florida, not far from me in the exhibit, and I emailed them and was asking them questions about if being part of this improved their reputation in the art scene, and they said it helped them get exposure,” Pope said.

Being a member of AAPL allows artists’ work to be promoted in major publications such as Fine Art Connoisseur and American Art Collector, and appearing in AAPL’s ads and newsletters. They also gain access to members-only exhibitions and mentorship programs, and they appear on the site’s members map, which allows artists to connect with others in the area. 

Pope said she has always loved expressing her creativity through art. 

“I always wanted to do art as a career. When I was younger, I thought I was too good for art class. I was wrong,” Pope said.

However, it wasn’t until Pope started submitting her work to exhibitions that she realized her potential as an artist.

“When I was at Valencia College taking painting, my professor had a call for artists, and I was like, ‘I’ll submit something. I don’t really care about it. I’ll just get it out there,'” Pope said.

After the artwork was displayed, Pope emailed her professor about something unrelated. Her professor then told her that someone wanted to buy her painting.

“Somebody wants to buy your painting,” Pope recalled her professor saying. “And I’m like, ‘Oh, I didn’t think anybody would buy it.’”

Since then, Pope has continued to grow as an artist, drawing inspiration from art museums and seeing the works of experienced artists. It was at the Orlando Museum of Art where Pope learned about artist Rosa Bonheur, whose painting “A Lion’s Head” intrigued her. Pope later became captivated by Bonheur’s famous painting The Horse Fair.

“She was one of the first female painters to get international attention, and so when I looked up more of her works. I saw her horse paintings, and I got fixated on horses for a bit,” Pope said.

Aki Kano, the president of AAPL, said she felt Pope’s work was selected for her attention to detail and realism in the painting.

“There’s a sense of light on the horse; the way the mane and the fur on the horse is shiny, it looks very lifelike. And there are good values. She has a lot of detail,” Kano said.

Pope said that despite the growing use of AI in our society and its ability to discourage artists and creatives, it inspires her to keep growing as an artist. 

“With the introduction of AI, I guess it kind of put fear into people. But for me, it inspired me to improve. Like, if technology is gonna improve, then I will too,” Pope said.