Biography :
Christen Austin is a 29-year-old freelance artist based in Fontana, California. She was born to a mother and father who supported her creativity from the moment she picked up a pencil. Her mother created art pieces that decorated the walls of her childhood home and she loved to watch her mother work on the realistic portraits that she created using a stippling pen. As Christen progressed through school, she always had the aspiration of becoming a computer animator. She practiced her art as a hobby and strived to master realistic portraiture. However, once she reached the end of high school, she felt as though art would not be a lucrative career and to avoid the “starving artist” stereotype she chose to pursue her second interest which was science. Christen graduated from Pasadena City College in 2016 with an Associate Degree in Natural Science and then transferred to California Polytechnic University of Pomona where she graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in General Biology.
While she was in school, Christen worked at a veterinary clinic to gain experience working in veterinary medicine which she wanted to specialize in and continued to work there for about two and a half years after graduating from Cal Poly Pomona in 2018. Nonetheless, art never left her. She maintained her creativity throughout her higher education and took several fundamental art classes at Pasadena City College including a painting class with Jim Morphesis which unbeknownst to her would inspire the start of her professional art career. Painting reawakened Christen’s passion for art and revealed a way for her to create art that she felt was worthy of gracing the walls of homes, businesses, galleries, and art museums as opposed to the small works that she did in her sketchpads.
In 2015,
She was commissioned by the Learning Assistance Center, The Zone, and the Ujima Program at Pasadena City College to paint pieces that are displayed there presently. During this time, she also met her mentor, Charles Jones, who worked with her to develop art prints, prepare for art shows, and develop a solid art business that would enable her to resign from her veterinary job after 10 years of working there and become a full-time artist. Christen works with many different types of media such as colored pencil, pastel, pen and ink, watercolor, graphics and design, and sculpture. However, her primary medium of choice is acrylic paint which has enabled her to create works with a broad range of color and complexity.
She has participated in many art shows within the Los Angeles County area such as the Chocolate and Art Show, the Pancakes and Booze Show, the Raw Artist Showcase, the Alkebulan Cultural Center in Pasadena, as well as the NAACP Pasadena Branch along with other fellow artists. She has won awards such as the “Award for Excellence” at the Conception Art Show in 2019 and the 1st place award and 3rd place award in the painting category at the Beverly Hills Art Show in 2020 and 2022 respectively. During the height of the pandemic in 2020, she was also recognized by Halle Berry on Instagram who reposted one of her pieces with an excerpt from Maya Angelou’s poem “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”. Christen continues to work on building her portfolio and expanding on her focus of illustrating the beauty of black culture and the importance of representation in the art community.