JUDITH AUSTEN

"Moving to Tucson, I grappled with the Sonoran Desert — an expanse without borders, challenging me to connect with this majesty."

JJudith Austen, originally from New York, is an accomplished artist and educator who has spent her life capturing the intricate beauty of the natural world and personal memory. With an education from Pratt Institute and an MFA from Boston University, she taught art for nearly three decades in Cambridge’s prestigious Shady Hill School while continuing to develop her painting practice. Her recent move to Tucson, Arizona, has sparked a new artistic chapter, with the desert’s bold landscapes inspiring her latest body of work.

Judith’s piece Agua Caliente was recently selected for the Arizona Biennial 2024, a significant achievement that places her among Arizona’s most respected contemporary artists. Her work, spanning landscapes, still life, and dream-inspired compositions, has been exhibited widely, reflecting her unique ability to merge the abstract with the familiar, and to bring a sense of calm and contemplation to the viewer.

Style: Abstract, Floral, Gardens, Landscape, Nature, Southwest

Medium: Painting, Oil • Mixed Media

Additional Bio and contact information

judith austen

I am an artist and writer raised in Great Neck, New York. Having spent my young adulthood in New York City where I graduated from Pratt Institute, I later moved to Boston for an MFA in art education. To support my life-long pursuit of painting, I taught art at he Shady Hill School in Cambridge, MA. My work has appeared in group shows and I have had numerous one-woman shows in the Boston area.

For me painting is about the personal expressed in color, be it dreams, still lives, or landscapes. My most transporting moment is being in a landscape, seated at my easel and painting into what I see until the boundaries dissolve and I become one with where I am.

My husband and I moved to Tucson in 2016 and my studio is in the Catalina Foothills. Moving to Tucson, I grappled with the Sonoran Desert — an expanse without borders, challenging me to connect with its grandeur. This can been seen in my larger oil landscapes such as, “Catalina Foothills,” painted on-site. To achieve intimacy with the new landscape, I chose cacti that intrigued me and planted them in pots. I painted their portraits and launched the series, “Desert Contained.”

I continue to be inspired by water and to create my water series. Open water can be nature’s invitation into a mirror of tranquility, a sanctuary to linger by, or it can turn into a treacherous turbulence that is terrifying and real. My fascination with this process is seen in the series “Water Close- Up.”

Ms. Austen’s water painting were the focus of an article in the November 2019 edition of “Desert Leaf” and her series, “Desert Contained,” was featured in the publicity for the 2021 Tucson Open Studio.

Education

Received her MFA from Boston University

Instructor

For 25 years Judith both painted and ran the studio art program at the prestigious Shady Hill School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Exhibits

Fifteen one-woman shows, participated in numerous group shows, and exhibited her work throughout New England.

Awards & Press

Contact

JUDITH AUSTEN

WEBSITE: www.austenarts.com