My practice explores the intersection of history, place, and identity through painting, photography, printmaking, and ceramic sculpture. I work interdisciplinarily, translating ideas across media in order to determine how material, process, and pace shape meaning. I am deliberate in my choice of medium, selecting each process to best support the conceptual and emotional intent of the artwork.

Painting is central to my practice, where I primarily create portraits. These works draw from photographic references. Photography functions as both a tool for observation and a means of preserving memory, allowing me to construct compositions that inform my painted imagery. While my paintings tend to remain grounded in realism and portraiture, my experimental work moves toward surrealist visuals, creating space to explore ambiguity, symbolism, and altered narratives.

My work is guided by a historical lens, particularly Victorian sentimentalism and the intimacy of traditional craft. I am drawn to the tactile quality and deliberate pace of early industrial and pre-industrial techniques. While my early practice relied on faster materials such as acrylic, watercolor, and digital photography, I have increasingly shifted toward slower processes including oil painting, film photography, printmaking, and ceramics. These methods demand patience and sustained attention, mirroring my interest in care, preservation, and memory.

Photography remains essential to how I document and interpret the world. Working with film has engaged me in the physicality of development and printing, where chemistry, time, and imperfection become active collaborators. Printmaking introduces rhythm and repetition, connecting my work to the history of image-making and the dissemination of ideas. My exploration of ceramics extends this historical and material inquiry. I have created sculptural works inspired by Victorian porcelain dolls and produced cyanotype tiles that merge photographic process with ceramic form. 

Across all media, my work seeks to bridge past and present, honoring traditional craftsmanship while engaging contemporary methods of seeing, recording, and preserving experience.


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Coming Up


Lumina: Senior BFA Exhibition

May 9-15

Opening Reception: May 9th, 2026 2-4 PM

Stephanie Ann Roper Gallery | Frostburg State University, Fine Arts Building


Ava Breighner is a graduating senior at Frostburg State University, where she is completing her BFA in Fine Arts with minors in Art History and Theatre. While her primary focus is painting and photography, her practice is multi-disciplinary, spanning printmaking, collage, ceramics, and textiles. Her work centers on portraiture, history, and identity.

She spent two semesters in northern England at Northumbria University, participating in its contemporary Fine Arts module with a collaborative course at the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art. During this time, she exhibited her work at the university's Gallery North.

Ava has shown her work regionally, with her solo debut taking place at the Bev Walker Gallery in 2023. Her senior BFA exhibition, Lumina, opens May 9, 2026 at Frostburg State's Stephanie Ann Roper Gallery. Beyond her studio practice, she has taken on leadership roles in arts administration and programming: She currently serves as Artistic Committee Co-Chair at the C. William Gilchrist Museum of the Arts, and was previously the President of Kappa Pi Art Honor Society (Beta Mu chapter), which she reinstated at Frostburg State. She recently curated the Stephanie Ann Roper Retrospective and presented her research titled "Aura, Institution, and the Colonial Object: Walter Benjamin’s Theory of Reproduction and the Repatriation Debate at the FSU Undergraduate Research Symposium.

This summer, Ava will intern at the Delaplaine arts organization as Community Engagement Assistant.

Artist Bio