Judith Austen

Born and raised in the New York City area, Ms. Austen received a BFA from Pratt Institute and an MFA from Boston University. After moving to Tucson five years ago, she has been painting a series she calls Desert Contained. She summers in Maine to pursue her imagery of “Water Close-Up.”

Open water can be nature’s inviting mirror of tranquility, a sanctuary to linger by, or it can turn to a treacherous turbulence, terrifying and real. I am the shore bird poised for the visual moment I want to grab and get down as mine, whether painting on location or as photographs to take back to the studio. No where is so vivid as what holds in paint.

The desert landscape is vast and overwhelming. To bring it into a more intimate scale, I planted cacti in pots, treated them like pets, and painted them as portraits.

Pronouns: She/ Her