Aust’s paintings endeavor to express the human need for connection and belonging and the challenge of achieving both. Each figure in her paintings is at some critical turning point in a journey; they are emotionally charged narrative fragments infused with a mysterious tension and secrecy.”

Artwork: Beach Dancer

In my work I respond to life as I see and feel its surges; irrational, irreverent and reverberating. I am constantly challenged to edit my impulses and form digestible images.

Artwork: Golfing on Venus

Groups of three women carry archetypal meaning. Where are the Graces, and Fates to regulate our activities and shape our fate? Perhaps they, like mythological Daphne are trapped within the trees. In the series “Grove,” I imagine these metamorphosed women emerging from the trees, with enigmatic expressions and unknown powers, re-animated and ready to resume their roles in these dangerous and mythic times.

Artwork: Three Women

For this series I painted with laundry detergent and fingernail polish, products traditionally used by women. “Land and Sea” was inspired by the estuary, a short walk from my home and also by the Piazzoni murals in the De Young.

Artwork: Land and Sea 6

When my mom persuasively said, “it’s Casserole Night!”, it meant she’d be rehashing leftovers into a new meal in order to save time and resources. Casserole Night is a series that comes of a driven challenge to use every drip of paint and put every studio move and impulse into a work. Layers of grids and dots in vibrant, active repetition become an ordering of instances: breath suspended, pattern shifted… encapsulating life’s tiniest and yet momentous evidence into one-pot canvases. Nothing goes to waste, as I allow the momentum or excess of one canvas to become the basis for the next, with not a single gap between starting and ending the works.

Artwork: Adios Sunset Surprise

My work is an allegorical exploration of existential, psychological, and spiritual ideas. I’m particularly interested in exploring our relationship with nature on a psychological level, including the notion that we think of nature as separate from ourselves, as an unlimited commodity to be used up, owned or conquered. What sort of flaw has evolved in humans, that makes us destroy the very thing we need to ensure our meaning and survival on Earth? Carl Jung said “The world hangs by a thin thread, and that thread is the psyche of man. … What if something goes wrong with the psyche?” I think this is one of the most profound and important questions ever posed and it informs much of my work.

Artwork: A Phantasmal Peace

My large clay sculptures are autobiographical totems. Their stories are a map of my personal landscape. They are high fired clay built over a steel armature and finished with glazes, oxides, stains and acrylics.

Artwork: Heart

In this new series FIFTY, I am attempting to capture this mid-century time of life by photographing women over the age of 50. The portraits are minimal and uncomplicated, depicting their identity and revealing a much larger story about the search for personal identity in this time of life. Intrigued by the idea of identity and portraiture, I have been attempting to capture unique qualities and characteristics in my subjects for more than two decades. In all my photographic series I am interested in how identity is portrayed through a small but very revealing aspect of someone.

Artwork: Leslie