Austin Furtak-Cole
BIO
Austin Furtak-Cole (b. 1981, Newburgh, New York) received his MFA from Stony Brook University in 2009. His work straddles the line between the softness of fantasy and the hardness of reality, where the painted characters sincerely search for some unknown meaning and are often met with a form of comedic defeat. They culminate in scenes of body parts, abstract forms and illustrated objects that take on symbolic potential primed for meaning and available for questioning. His paintings and drawings have been shown at Room Artspace, Rad Hourani, Harpy Gallery, Field Projects, Open House Gallery, Park Place Gallery, Denise Bibro Fine Art, and Brenda Taylor Gallery. His work has been published in Maake Magazine, Art Maze Magazine, Friends of the Artist and New American Paintings. He’s completed residencies with the Chautauqua Institution and the Vermont Studio Center, and in the spring of 2019 he left Brooklyn, New York to attend a residency with the Golden Foundation. He currently lives and paints in the Green Mountains of Vermont.
Watch our interview with Austin from February 4, 2021.