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Four of us. A triptych.
Over the last little while, I have been experimenting with using old family photos as subject material, and I’ve also been interested in the social masks that we put on. In this triptych, I have painted myself, my sister, and brother with our father from a photograph taken at a family function in the mid-1990s.…
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The Predators and The Pollinators.
Designed to be companion pieces, The Predators and The Pollinators both feature Australian flora and fauna, the exception being the Venus Flytrap motif on the wallpaper behind the Peregrine Falcons in The Predators. The Predators. Oil on canvas. 400mm x 300mm © 2021 Jason T Austin The Predators feature the Australian native Peregrine Falcons, a natural…
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Marks, Feeney & the Koalas with Galahs.
I was frustrated earlier in the year as I had been working on a painting of a couple of men named Charles Marks and Edward Feeney who had been involved in a duel, a murder/suicide pact which took place in Treasury Gardens, Melbourne in 1872. I’d spent a lot of time researching the couple and…
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Departed: A Set of Three.
My partner went through a stage of photographing the dead birds that he found on his walks. A morbid fascination, I know, but I was struck by the beauty of these images, mostly due to the juxtaposition between the texture of the feathers opposed to the surface that the birds were laying on. I was…
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Memento Mori: A set of three.
Using inspiration from Mexican, French and Italian Memento Mori photographs from the 19th Century.
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The Family Swine: A Memento Mori.
Recently I’ve been interested in memeno mori. Translating as “remember death”, memento mori were an important part of life to past civilisations and served as a reminder of morality. Often skulls in artwork have served as memento mori. Due to high morality rates in Victorian times memento mori became popular and the new technology of photography allowed…
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A Bear, after The Death of Marat by Jacques-Louis David.
We had a real estate agent in our apartment recently we chatted for about an hour. I didn’t once see him look at this painting at all during our conversation but when he was about to leave he looked at me, pointing at it and said. “That’s a bit sad, isn’t it mate? That’s a bit sad.”…
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The Scientists, after The Ambassadors by Hans Holbein the Younger.
Hans Holbein the Younger’s, The Ambassadors which was painted in 1533 and is housed at the National Gallery in London is full of symbolism and it has been long debated what various elements of the painting represent. Some believe it represents religious discord between secular scholars and clergy, others think Holbein was making a statement about capitalism and the…
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Animal Cannibal Series
The Animal Cannibal series came about after a driving trip my partner and I took through the Victorian countryside. It seemed that every town we went through had a butcher and the depictions of the animals on the windows and signage showed the animals as passive or happy. I have always found the image…
Jason T. Austin. 