STIGGYaRT

Austin was raised in Idaho and was educated in the Pacific Northwest. He has a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting and Printmaking from Western Washington University and earned his Master of Fine Arts from Washington State University.

He taught studio art courses at a number of colleges in Eastern Washington and the Inland Northwest before relocating to Pennsylvania where he now works as Assistant Professor of Painting at Gettysburg College. His achievements have been recognized with both state and national awards and he has exhibited his artwork internationally. A number of his artworks have been purchased by private collectors in the United States, Europe and Japan.

 “I think of my paintings and drawings as a type of satirical realism. Their narratives often center on human drama that takes place in complexly imagined contemporary environments. The images I create through my work have become my way of expressing my feeling that contemporary society might be completely absurd. What is it about being human that forms our desire to exploit and cheat nature? To exploit others? How is it that our use of technology seemingly creates more problems than it solves? The dichotomous nature of the human condition really fascinates me.

The narratives I am most interested in exploring are usually images that show a friction between ordinary individuals and the societal order that works to subjugate them in so many ways. Forces such as global capitalism, consumerism and rapidly advancing technologies that have drastically reshaped society in our present. My work may be my concession of the impossibility of a utopian society, but I think they are also my attempt to find beauty within the modern world. I like the idea that the heroes in my pictures never stop fighting for their own true desires, despite the prevalence of the continuous and intense pressure for them to conform to ridiculous and arbitrary social constructs in a dysfunctional world.”