My solo show opens this week!

It has been a journey to get here and I almost can't believe that with all that has happened in the last year, I was able to see my artistic vision through to this point (with still more to spare, tbh). For those who have been here a while, I began exploring creating by way of collage while away on the East Coast for an Artist Residency in 2022. It felt like a new challenge, and allowed for a sense of quickness and steadiness while I navigated the streets of NYC/Jersey City.
I kept thinking about what that process gave me and how it often felt like a release of energy and play I couldn't always quickly achieve while waiting for layers upon layers of paint to dry on a stretched canvas. Years later, in the spring of 2025, having struggled to juggle the creative and time demands of a day job and my art practice, I propped up a table in my then studio (at Hangar!) and continued adding to the 'scraps' of cut canvas I had saved from my East Coast ventures.

I'd play where I could between gallery hours and the small window after a workday in between adulthood things. But by summer's end, my body was beginning to alert me that something was not right. Months upon months of doctor appointments and daily, chronic pain with both difficulty standing and sitting for any amount of time really made the piecing together that much more trying. I ended up moving out of my studio at Hangar and onto the dining table in my lil studio apartment. As I've mentioned a few months ago, I did end up finally getting surgery in January. Turns out it was a large fibroid compressing my sciatic nerve, then my bladder, and ultimately my mental health, if I’m to be honest. It's been months of healing (still in the process, but we’re getting there!) and attempting to turn back time on all the over-compensation my body has had to adapt to, but I can say I'm finally starting to feel like a glimpse of myself again.

A reemergence of curiosity and joy was found in the process in creating these pieces both back in 2022 and very much today. And although it’s different than most of my work in the last decade, it’s a gift to be able to honor the creative I am in this moment.

Finding The Substance is an adaptation of time, physical limitations, and an exploration of meaning in an ever changing environment.
With the demands of the day-to-day, months of chronic pain, and a physical body on its own timeline of healing, Austin’s usual process of layered, painted abstraction was forced to suit her reality. Using fractured paintings of the past, and fragments of the present, both the complex and straightforward compositions of primed and raw canvas lend themselves to the search of substance amongst the joys and pains of life. Though cut to fit, and pieced to form, the layers of each work hold a steadfast confidence in what is hoped for and an assurance of what is unseen.
Reflecting on a similar process she explored during an Artist Residency in 2022, titled Release and Control, Austin created this latest series over the course of a year - with some elements dating as far back as 2019. Ebbing and flowing through the need to honor her creative practice, the question was always answered - The Artist is still fundamental. The Artist is still essential.