{"id":427343,"date":"2026-10-14T06:06:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-14T06:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/427343\/"},"modified":"2026-10-14T06:06:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-14T06:06:10","slug":"ucf-art-student-featured-in-national-online-exhibit-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/427343\/","title":{"rendered":"UCF art student featured in national online exhibit | Life"},"content":{"rendered":"

With its braided mane and lifelike details, Ashanti Pope\u2019s painting captures a stallion standing quietly in a grassy field. The junior emerging media student\u2019s artwork, “Bright and Braided,” was selected for the American Artists Professional League\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0national online exhibit, which showcased 175 artists from July 31 to Sept. 30.<\/p>\n

“I’m in that phase right now;\u00a0I’m\u00a0learning how to draw\u00a0animals to study fur and textures,”\u00a0Pope said.\u00a0“When I was younger, I\u00a0avoided drawing fur because it felt\u00a0like\u00a0too much, but then I decided to challenge\u00a0myself.”<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI 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,\u201d Pope said.<\/p>\n

Being a member of\u00a0AAPL<\/a>\u00a0allows\u00a0artists’ work to be promoted in major publications such as Fine Art Connoisseur and American Art Collector, and appearing in AAPL\u2019s ads and newsletters. They also gain access to members-only exhibitions and mentorship programs, and they appear on the site\u2019s members map, which allows artists to connect with others in the area.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Pope said she has always loved expressing her creativity through art.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI always wanted to do art as a career. When I was younger, I thought I was too good for art class. I was wrong,\u201d Pope said.<\/p>\n

However, it wasn’t\u00a0until Pope started\u00a0submitting her work to exhibitions that she realized her potential\u00a0as an artist.<\/p>\n

“When I was at Valencia College taking painting, my professor had a call for artists, and I was like, ‘I\u2019ll submit something. I don\u2019t really care about it. I\u2019ll just get it out there,'” Pope said.<\/p>\n

After the artwork was displayed, Pope emailed her professor about something unrelated. Her professor then told her that someone wanted to buy her painting.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomebody wants to buy your painting,\u201d Pope recalled her professor saying. \u201cAnd I\u2019m like, \u2018Oh, I didn\u2019t think anybody would buy it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2019s famous painting The Horse Fair.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe 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,\u201d Pope said.<\/p>\n

Aki Kano, the president of AAPL, said she felt Pope\u2019s work was selected for her attention to detail and realism in the painting.<\/p>\n

“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,\u201d Kano said.<\/p>\n

Pope said that despite the growing use of AI in our society and its ability to discourage artists and creatives,\u00a0it inspires her to keep growing as an artist.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With its braided mane and lifelike details, Ashanti Pope\u2019s painting captures a stallion standing quietly in a grassy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":427344,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[168019,168020,3087,168018,168021,5119,139,141,140],"class_list":["post-427343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-aapl","tag-american-artist-professional-league","tag-art","tag-art-student","tag-bright-and-braided","tag-exhibit","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=427343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427343\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/427344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}