10 Austin Art Personalities You Should Know

Image via Complex Original

Margo Sawyer received her BA Honors Degree from the Chelsea School of Art in London and her MFA in sculpture from Yale University. She has fueled her studio practice by teaching at the University of Texas at Austin since 1988, where she currently teaches sculpture and extended Media. Her work has been exhibited internationally and she is the recipient of many prestigious awards, including a Fulbright Grant and National Endowment for the Arts. Throughout her body of work Sawyer has been enthralled with the notion of sacred space and ceremony, and how physical structures can affect and guide one’s sensation of transcendence. Her recent public works in Texas are born through a merging of her sculptural language and her research of architecture.

Taking the doodling impulse to otherworldly extremes, illustrator Sophie Roach creates densely detailed and imaginative drawings from the modest materials of pen and marker. Her fusion of op art, comic book line, and freehanded impulse treat your eyes from afar and delight with dizzying intricacy close up. Her designs have graced a manner of objects including guitars, cell phone cases, and, of course, sneakers.

Okay Mountain, the nine-member collective of art dudes, have made a name for themselves with their humorous sculptures and installations that meddle in what they call “consumerist fantasy.”  The group formed in 2006 as an artist-run gallery and slowly began making works together. Their piece Cornerstore is a life-size recreation of the archetype bodega. Upon entering the store you find that every element of the work is a fabrication, the brick structure is filled with the artist’s unique twists of cigarette packaging, baseball hats, and bizarrely branded foods. After so many years of collaboration, the collective is still gaining momentum. Their drawings, sound works, sculptures, and installations have made their way into museum collections around the country.

Credited as the mother of yarn bombing, Magda Sayeg continues to expand the possibilities of knitted and crocheted public installations. Yarn bombing is the practice of wrapping sculptures, buildings, and architectural city elements with brightly color crocheted sleeves. Though many yarn enthusiasts practice the trend these days, Sayeg still stands out. She has installed works around the world, including Paris, Rome, London and New York. A visit to Mexico City prompted Sayeg to cover an entire city bus in a vibrant patchwork. She’s installed works that overtake the entire trunk and branches of trees, even planted arbors lining the Texas Capital promenade.

Louis Grachos (Executive Director) and Heather Pesanti (Senior Curator) of The Contemporary Austin are making a big splash in the recently rebranded museum. The merger of Arthouse and the Austin Museum of Art, debuted in 2011 and has blossomed with the guidance of their new leadership. The two joined forces to invigorate the city with exhibitions by globally recognized artists and to expand the label of contemporary artworks in light of the surging exploration of new media and performance. Recent exhibitions include a retrospective of Tom Sachs’ detailed boomboxes that he’s fabricated since 1995, as well as a show of ethereal fabric sculptures by Do Ho Suh.

As founding member of the aforementioned Okay Mountain and as a solo artist, Sterling Allen has exhibited his works around the U.S. He received his MFA in 2014 from Bard College and has been an artist in residence at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art in Omaha, Artpace in San Antonio, and Residencia Internacional de Artistas in Buenos Aires. Allen, who works both sculpturally and in 2D-mixed media, is skilled at blending the inherent qualities of the medium. His works on paper of bizarre found objects posses a dimensionality that you can almost touch. Similarly his sculptural works disguise in a playful flatness.

The Art Alliance Austin has been around since 1956. The aim of the organization is to serve as a resource to all levels of the community, artists, curators, and collectors alike. Under the direction of Asa Hursh, the nonprofit has placed extra emphasis on funding and commissioning new artworks around the city, as well as developing new platforms in which the public can discover and interact with art. Hursh’s background makes him a great fit. He brings the sensibility of an artist having studied painting in undergrad, a grasp of the big picture with an MA in Art History, and the analytic vision obtained from an MBA. The Alliance supports the community in a plethora of ways: It’s at the helm of the annual art fair Art City Austin, provides a weekly art calendar of exhibitions listing city wide, and continually innovates in public events and performances.

Individual graffiti artists and muralists band together to form SprATX. Together they brighten the streets of Austin with collaborative projects and maintain the ever-evolving art site Hope Outdoor Gallery. SprATX welcomes all who want to participate, and boast nearly 30 artists to date. The aim of the project is to carve out legitimate projects and designs for the artists to sink their teeth into, all the while providing space and materials to propel the work. Notable members are Nonstop, Dave Lowell, Lucas Aoki, and Mouf.

Travis Kent and Mikaylah Bowman were once employees of the beloved Domy Books. When the shop abruptly closed up, they rallied and founded their own store, Farewell Books, dedicated to books of wonder. The shop, which specializes in rare used and new books, is a hub and hangout for the die-hard bibliophiles of Austin. They have also upheld Domy’s affinity for art, and half of their space is solely devoted to and for art exhibition, with shows changing every six weeks. Artists from around the U.S. have been exhibited including recent shows by Houston–based Jonathan Ryan Storm and New York–based Erik Shane Swanson.

A frenzy of line work and electrified texture characterize the works of Jules Buck Jones. This prolific artist has been compared to a zoologist for his deep connection to the animal and vegetal world. The appearance of spirit-like animals—foxes, swans, toads, eagles, and more—may be inspired by his girlfriend Audrey Stewart’s profession as an animal behaviorist. His recent depictions of dense foliage are the result of voyages into the rainforests of Nicaragua and Costa Rica. Jones and Stewart have plans for turning their project into a roving theater that would educate children on endangered species.