Austin’ s artwork began almost incidentally with a thoughtful gift of watercolor paints from his stepson in 2011.“ When I was a child, I loved art! But in high school, I became unduly practical,” says Austin.“ I went on to become a lawyer and law professor.”
His practicality likely helped with his straightforward approach to learning art. He is entirely self-taught. Austin initially drew shapes such as cones and experimented with how to make them look threedimensional. He then began to add shadows to learn how the light would play on the objects. This process of learning took him about six weeks to master.
Eventually he took a photo of the street he was living on at the time, drew it, and then painted it.
Watercolors are not the most forgiving medium, especially for a beginner. With its transparent quality, it’ s very hard to correct a mistake. But Austin kept at it, and his work became extraordinary paintings of ordinary places. Some of his subjects, which are instantly recognizable, have been Larry’ s Central Market, the Warner Theatre and more recently, Kraus Department Store.
“ My painting style is what’ s called photo-realism,” explains Austin.“ I have no imagination. I just paint what I see.”
His self-criticism might be a bit harsh, however, because he sees the familiar buildings with a history and uses subtle light effects to highlight certain features that might be missed with the naked eye.“ The buildings have stories in them. I want to paint them before they disappear.”
Austin steers away from people’ s faces in his work. In his painting Market at Roslindale, the faces have been intentionally left blank, leaving them to the viewers’ imagination. Other paintings include people, but only at a distance or from behind.
His artwork is more about the buildings and the environment they live in, rather than their emotional effect on individuals.
But there is something very emotional about seeing a place that is extremely familiar, which can evoke memories of that place and people no longer here.
Some of Austin’ s work is of places from past travels. He lived in China for eight years, and has painted scenes from photographs in China, Taiwan, Russia and Venice to name a few.
Austin has 12 pieces that will appear in a show in August at the 1020 Collective. The theme of the show is“ City Scapes.”
Each piece he paints is a labor of love that can take a fair amount of time to create. His most recent work of Kraus Department Store took six weeks to complete.
To view more of Daniel Austin’ s art, visit danielaustinwatercolors. com. n
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