Karla Kaizoji Austin

Northern California artist, Karla Kaizoji Austin, received a BFA in painting from the San Francisco Art Institute, a BA from UC Berkeley in anthropology as well as a MA from Humboldt State University in psychology. As a result, her art is rich with content and complexities that mirror the landscape of her world. Earth's natural landscape is the source of inspiration for her subject matter.  She finds it especially important to paint the land, sky and water now that climate change and global warming threaten to wipe out many of the sacred places that are important to her. Karla’s unusual path to her art took many twists and turns. Growing up in Southern California, she began drawing as a child and always knew she wanted to become a fine artist. She worked as a bus driver, truck driver, Fed Ex courier, high school counselor, scientific illustrator and book illustrator to support her passion. She helped curate and organize two Humboldt County art shows featuring Asian American artists entitled “Made in America” and “Ten Thousand Gates” at the Ink People Gallery and Morris Graves Museum of Art respectively. Her work has been seen in Bay Area galleries including the Canessa Gallery, Claudia Chapline Gallery and the San Francisco MOMA Rental Gallery. Other exhibitions include the John Natsoulas Gallery in Davis, the Arts Guild of Sonoma, the Marin Society of Artists Gallery in San Rafael, the Highland Art Center in Weaverville and Arts Benicia in Benicia. She has been accepted to many National juried exhibitions including the Brand Library Works on Paper Exhibition twice and has been the recipient of numerous awards including 2 Best in Show, 3 First Place, 2 Second Place, and a host of Merit and Honorable Mention Awards. Her work can be found in corporate and private collections on the West Coast. Karla is a third generation Japanese-Korean American. Her father was interned at Manzanar during World War Two and her mother grew up in Hawaii. Her favorite painters are J. M. W. Turner, Claude Monet and Joseph Raffael. She lives with her husband, Aussie shepherd dog and two cats on a couple of acres in the Humboldt Redwoods.