Up and Coming Magazine, Fayetteville, NC, “The Altered Forms…”, May 2015

​

The Altered Forms of Robin Teas and Katey Austin

​

By Soni Martin

​

 

Either real or illusion, local artists Robin Teas and Katey Austin both explore ideas about shaping space in their respective mediums.  Robin Teas, a ceramicist and Katey Austin, a painter, have been invited to share their works with the public during the opening of The Altered Forms of Robin Teas and Katey Austin at Gallery 20 on May 12.

 

Teas and Austin are both instructors in the Department of Art at Fayetteville Technical Community College.  Teas received her Masters of Fine Arts in Ceramics at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Va, in 2006.  Since 2009, she has been teaching ceramics, 3D design, sculpture and drawing at FTCC; as well as becoming the art gallery director, 2013-2014.  With a busy schedule, her presence has been felt in the community as an advocate for the arts, an exhibiting artist and an inspiration to the many art students at FTCC.

 

Teas’s colleague, Katey Austin, a recent graduate of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, is exhibiting a series of paintings.  She earned her Masters of Fine Arts in Painting in 2014.  Austin, who teaches drawing, painting, watercolor, figure drawing and 2D design, is sharing her layered and complicated approach to interpreting the spatial relationships of cityscapes and interiors through color, pattern and mark making.

 

The Altered Forms of Robin Teas and Katey Austin is the first exhibition of Gallery 208 to pair a ceramicist and a painter.  The unlikely combination becomes an opportunity for visitors to compare subtle similarities by artists who are engaged in differed mediums; both explore how they respond to the physicality of “the real.”

 

First and foremost, both artists have a command over the formal aspects of composition, shape, volume and texture.  Color is important to both and process dictates over content.  Surface and volume are relevant and result in the actual dimensionality of the ceramic form or the illusionary aspect of a painting.  Ever present for both is the response to flatness and fullness, retreat and advance.  Each in their own way answers something about how they view the world and transports us from the ordinary to an intuitive and altered place or shape.

 

Austin’s paintings are vibrant with specific amounts of pure color to create rhythm and movement in the work.  Austin creates depth by juxtaposing warm and cool colors-references from her environment are coded into a coherent color-space-place.  Austin reveals content when she reference her interpretation of architectural interior.

 

A delightfully comparative exhibition between two artists, the public is invited to meet both artists during the opening on May 12 at 208 Rowan Street.

 

 

May 6, 2015

Up and Coming Magazine, Fayetteville, NC