Artist Statement:

As a four year-old, I found that licking the tip of the red color pencil made a more intense red as I drew my tree!  I remember the adults chuckling as they noticed I had smeared the pigment all over my face.  This love of nature and intense color still seems to drive me artistically after all of these years. My joy in color has grown to include the nuance of tones and near-complements that echo the infinite colors around me. 

I have found that my brushes and pencils create the same endless variety of marks just as the world surrounding me displays an endless variety of life.  I find whimsical lines of energy in my paintings begin to imitate the energy that I sense around me.  I have fallen in love with my brush! 

My subject matter and media reflect my thirty-some years of sharing a wide range of artistic adventures with my public school students.  Every new medium still represents another possible right answer to some yet unanswered query and another journey to some adventure. I am moved by drawing and painting the human figure.  Faces and bodies are provocative in all of their wide range of conditions. Architectural elements are a challenge as they speak of human-kind creating in a created world.  My drive to make art is primary.

Daniel Augenstein

Spring 2011