Artist Statement

Arielle Austin is an abstract painter living and working in Austin, Texas. Abstraction allows the Los Angeles native the freedom to be playful and curious, while challenging the many ways of expressing her inner world beyond what words can impart. Her paintings are visual representations of the reclamation of her voice and feed a yearning for internal and spiritual mending. In sharing the fruits of her practice, Austin invites the viewer to bring their own processes and truest selves to allow for hope and light to do its own mending and liberating.

For Austin, working primarily on stretched canvas gives a sense of discourse and commune within the act of creating. It is a conversation with self and Creator, the tools being used, and the canvas. Arielle uses pastels and charcoal for intentionally committed mark making, and acrylic paint for its ease of manipulation and its ability to speak to the varied everyday fluidity of emotions without having to utter a word. Within these mediums she is able to be authentic and true to the present, leaving room for moments of hearing, of humility and the recollection of memories.

Austin begins each piece by laying down diluted acrylic paint. The flick of a brush and quiet, bold markings of pastel or charcoal are applied to the canvas. Often, the title of the piece is written beneath opaque layers of paint, or slightly hidden between diluted washes as a way of claiming its name before its beginning. Within the process of layering, shaping and carving out the composition by using tools like brushes, rags, rubber spatulas, and, sometimes, her hands, Austin takes joy in the purge and edit as she moves both contemplatively and freely from canvas to canvas with multiple tools in hand. It is when the lingering questions arise, “have we said all that needs to be said? is the conversation finished?” are met with a flutter of excitement or sigh of relief, when she knows a piece has reached its completion.

The intuitive process of creating is a sacred communion and saving grace. Through Abstraction, Arielle finds her grounding while embracing room for error, room for questions and room for inquisitive thoughts and ideas to become tangible moments outside of her head and body. By way of redemption, Austin bravely confronts both Creator and self in order to share the hope of new beginnings, not only as a reminder to herself but for others to partake in as well.