Title: Persephone and Hades Media: AI enhanced Digital Découpage Dimensions: 29"x16" Price: $1,300 It all began at the Recycling Center in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York. I noticed people leaving large objects—like old streetlamps and antique velvet couches—outside the recycling bins. I was fascinated—to me they were beautiful objects that needed to be preserved. Since I couldn’t bring them home, I started taking pictures of everything I found: galoshes, angels, glass bottles, tattered tarot cards and dusty jewelry. I was fixated and went back week after week for more. I seemed to have developed an affinity for junk. An advertising art director by trade, my Photoshop abilities were very good at the time, so I started making collages. My first few attempts lacked personality, but I was determined to turn these finds into art. Using my art school skills, the art history classes I snoozed through, and anything else I could conjure up, I stuck with it. Little by little, I discovered a pattern of interpretation and Digital Découpage was born. Since early 2022, I've been using AI technologies to enhance my work. By combining traditional art techniques with AI, my work has taken on a new dimension and the stories they tell are thought-provoking and deeply meaningful to viewers. From Influx: Elaine Ashburn’s Persephone and Hades exudes a captivating blend of darkness and elegance, capturing the mythological tension between life and death. The piece’s refined use of AI-enhanced Digital Découpage lends an ethereal depth to the shadowy cave and vivid hues of Persephone's gown, as well as the sinister ambiance of Hades’ realm. Ashburn’s skillful layering of textures and lighting not only highlights her background in advertising art direction but also showcases her evolved interpretation style through the fusion of traditional découpage with modern AI techniques. This work invites viewers to explore a haunting yet beautiful narrative space, emblematic of Ashburn’s journey from discarded treasures to evocative storytelling.