Elizabeth Austin

Elizabeth Austin studied studio art at Lawrence University in Appleton, WI, focusing on drawing from life, a skill which forms the basis of her recent landscape paintings. Austin moved to New Hampshire in the mid-1980s and began producing large pastel drawings. In 1985, Austin started a series of performance art pieces which she pursued for the next ten years. These projects included both audience participation pieces and a one-woman play. In the early 1980s, Austin started creating a series of artist's books that used translucent plastic. A summer program at MIT's Center for Advanced Visual Studies sparked Austin's interest in diffraction grating, the phenomenon which allows holograms to function. Austin's use of iridescent paint and of foil that reflects prismatic light grows directly out of this exploration. The artist has noted that these materials change appearance depending upon the position of the viewer, similar to the varied reactions of an audience to a live performance. From 1988-98, Austin produced paintings of waterfalls and streams, using collaged reflective elements. These lead directly into the artist’s current work, with their dream-like visions of nature. Austin has shown her work extensively, including venues in Wisconsin, Paris, Tokyo, and Cape Verde, Africa. Several exhibitions of her paintings were held in Chicago at the Jean Albano Gallery in the 1990s. Austin lives in Europe and New Hampshire. She melds imagery and techniques inspired by new materials and traditional European art to create a visually dazzling body of work. Living for more than a decade in France, she absorbed the lessons of Gothic, Renaissance, and Baroque art and architecture. Drawing on these diverse sources, Austin developed a novel working process: suspending reflective materials such as holographic foils, mica, and aluminum powders in clear acrylic and layering them onto transparent acrylic blocks. The works suggest three dimensions when viewed from the front.