new book
published by Wasabi Publishing

This book takes the reader to a place few artists have been the birth of a completely new medium.  Austine has devoted her life to perfecting what curator James Mann calls “a revolutionary new art . . . unique in the world.”  What he calls “revolutionary importance” in the art world are colorful figurative paintings created with no pigments whatsoever, and which change as the viewer interacts with the art.  These remarkable works, presented here as a series of still photographs, allow Austine to create images that change, as our environment does – the sun sets, seasons change, water flows.  “I try to focus on the flow of experience rather than one static instant,” says Austine.  But these are not animations in the cinematic sense.  They are instead paintings which ebb and flow.  Nor are these psychedelic light effects.  They are highly controlled images springing from the mind and hand of the artist.  From her sketch book to finished art work, Austine takes us through her creative process, and from her first experiments with polarized light art to her most recent museum works.  The joy of this book is our ability to share Austine’s process of discovery, her artistic vision, and her decades of devotion to originating and developing this unique and arresting new medium of visual art.  James Mann’s insightful monograph places this body of work into the perspective of a new movement beyond Post-modernism and into an era of reconstruction and synthesis.

Austine Wood Comarow is a radically original artist and thinker.  She grew up in postwar Europe where her father directed the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, which won the Nobel Peace Prize during his tenure.  Having lived abroad for many years, she speaks five languages and has had a truly international career.  After attending Swarthmore College, she obtained a B.A. in Russian Literature at the University of Indiana, and later earned an M.F.A. in illustration from Syracuse University.  At a crucial point in her artistic development, she discovered by chance that certain transparent materials produce colors when they are illuminated with polarized light and are viewed through polarizing sunglasses or filters.  All her work since then has been devoted to creating an entirely new and unique medium of artistic expression.  Known professionally as Austine, she has work in private, corporate and museum collections worldwide.  Austine now lives and works on the outskirts of Las Vegas, Nevada.

James Mann served as curator and is now curator-at-large for the Las Vegas Art Museum, where he has originated over fifty exhibitions since 1996, half of them accompanied by catalogues.  He is co-author of the Santa Fe Printmakers Series, published by Bell Tower Editions, and is the author of two forthcoming books:  Beyond Post-modernism, a work of art theory, and AZ-USA, a book-length poem.

Read an essay about Austine's work by author James Mann

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