Bio
Jessica Austin (b.1999, South East Wales) is a multidisciplinary artist working predominantly in textiles and painting. Graduating from Edinburgh College of Art in 2022 with a BA (Hons) in Painting, she has recently been selected for RSA New Contemporaries 2024 and shortlisted for the Visual Arts Scotland Graduate Showcase Award.
Statement
Jessica Austin’s practice explores the construction of space. Her paintings and textiles create moments of reflection, encouraging the viewer to settle into a world that balances on the border of tactile and immaterial. Greatly affected by her experience of surrounding landscapes, primarily those close to her home in rural Wales, Austin has a preoccupation with place and limbo. This is explored through the process of constant layering and reworking of elements taken from external and internal worlds. Research into liminal spaces and memory underpins Austin’s practice, as well as exploration of personal themes such as grief and identity through sensory experience. Her work is conceived through a process of distillation, creating unpredictable environments laced with familiar moments and forms. She navigates aesthetics and meaning through her intuitive and experimental handling of paint and fabric, with process and materiality being at the heart of her work. Forms interlock and overlap to create a rhythmic visual experience that encourages movement around the canvas and a sense of discovery.