Marshfield grad’s art reaches global stage

MARSHFIELD – For Austin Jasurda, a 2014 graduate of Marshfield Senior High School, the path to becoming an internationally-recognized realist painter began with a “light bulb” moment in a local classroom.

Now an instructor at the Great Lakes Academy of Fine Art, Jasurda is seeing his work reach a global stage as a finalist in the prestigious Art Renewal Center (ARC) Salon.

“Until my professional training, I never really understood why that was a good thing. But I knew I enjoyed it... copying the masters and... Tim Berglund, especially... He would physically bow down to the masters in a joking way. So that kind of attitude towards... standing on the shoulders of giants... I think he imparted that to me more so than specifically aimed projects,” he said.

“When the student is ready, the teacher appears,” he added, noting his own timeline to professional art. “I graduated in 2014 and It took me six years to really lock in that goal”.

The piece that earned him international acclaim, “Trouble Finding Sitters,” features a unique subject: a translucent red chair.

“A friend of mine… his friend’s dad worked for McDonald’s in the 70s and designed that chair as a prototype,” Jasurda explained. “I went over to his apartment one night and I just saw it and I said I’d really like to paint that. It’s an odd thing. It’s unique, The title I thought was just clever. It’s an empty chair, so I didn’t have a portrait sitter, so I thought it’d be funny to just add a little humor”.

Despite the “flashy things” on the chair, the true test was the background.

“It’s often the background that’s the hardest thing to paint to get it really uniform and get those edge transition soft enough. So it wasn’t like the chair itself. It didn’t feel super challenging. Getting that background to not be all spotty and odd looking,” he explained.

Now an instructor at the academy where he trained, Jasurda finds that teaching traditional techniques has refined his own approach.

“It certainly puts a mirror up to your own work, You don’t want to get caught in that do as I say, not as I do thing,” he admitted. “I find myself having learned some of the rules and breaking them. Yes, it selfishly helps me get better”.

While his work is currently on exhibit in Barcelona through May 17, Jasurda is still searching for his definitive style.

“I don’t believe I’ve found my artistic voice quite yet,” he said. “I can see the influence of my mentor in that piece quite a bit. You know, for good or for ill, I’m not sure yet... I don’t think I’ve dialed in the... the kind of storytelling that I want to tell, quite yet”.

Ultimately, for Jasurda, the art is about the people.

“I think people, relationships with people, I find to be more and more important,” he concluded. “And I think that’s coming out in my portraits a lot more... it’s the people around that make it worthwhile.”