Austin Irving

Austin Irving (born 1984) is an American contemporary artist and photographer.
Irving was born in New York City in 1984. She is the daughter of film director David Irving and landscape designer Susan Irving. Her paternal grandparents are theater director Jules Irving and the actress Priscilla Pointer. She is the niece of the actress Amy Irving. In 2006, Irving graduated graduated cum laude from the Tisch School Of The Arts at NYU with a BFA from the Department of Photography and Imaging.
Irving works with large format analog photography. She uses a Toyo-View camera and shoots on 4x5 Kodak color negative. Her images are presented as large scale photographic prints. Her artwork has been the recipient of numerous awards and has been exhibited in galleries, museums and festivals in Hong Kong, India, Germany, Lithuania, France, Switzerland, Italy, Greece, Indonesia, Budapest, and across The United States. Her photographs explore liminality and metageography, anthropocentrism, and the tension between natural and man-made environments. Irving has stated that her photographic practice is motivated by the wish to find relief from the "extreme internal discomfort" of living with body dysmorphic disorder. Irving cites Thomas Demand, Bernd & Hilla Becher, MC Escher, René Magritte, Lynne Cohen, and James Turrell as artists whose work has impacted her practice.
In 2017, she was the artist-in-residence at the National Centre for Biological Sciences in Bangalore, India. In 2019, she was an artist-in-residence at the Varda Artist Residency aboard the SS Vallejo, a historic house boat in Sausalito, California.
NOT AN EXIT (2007–present) showcases real-world optical illusions created from narrow angles in functional hallways and doorways. These photographs have been called Escher-esque, a reference to M. C. Escher. The debut of this series in 2015 at Wilding Cran Gallery was reviewed in The LA Times by art critic Leah Ollman. Irving was named as one of "9 Female Architectural Photographers You Should Know In 2023" by the Architecture MasterPrize. This series has been honored in the Budapest International Foto Awards, the Architecture MasterPrize, Annual Photo Awards, Analog Sparks International Film Photography Awards, PX3 Prix De La Photographie Paris, the Aesthetica Art Prize, the Tokyo International Foto Awards, was nominated for the Felix Schoeller Photo Award, was a finalist in Klompching's FRESH Annual Photography Exhibition, and has been shortlisted for The PhMuseum's Photography Grant.
SHOW CAVES (2009–present) has received significant media and academic interest for its interrogation of the ethics and impact of ecotourism, specifically the concept of government and commercially operated show caves. As a result, Irving was asked to sit on a panel for a public forum on rural economies at Virginia Tech's annual conference for Appalachian Studies Association, where the socio-economic impact of commodifying rural arts, culture, environment, and heritage to create a tourist industry in rural Appalachia was debated. This series has also been featured on The Weather Channel, Yatzer, and in Wired Magazine. SHOW CAVES has also been honored in the International Photography Awards, ND Awards, AI-AP American Photography, Budapest International Foto Awards, and the International Photo Grant. An image from this series won the Florida Museum of Photographic Art's 2021 International Photography Competition.
HIS MINECRAFT (2021–present) is an analogue study of virtual interiors. Using 4x5 color negative, Irving has developed a bespoke method of photographing digitally-generated interiors found within her husband’s private Minecraft city. In 2023, this series was honored in the Annual Photography Awards, PX3 Prix De La Photographie Paris, the Architecture Master Prize, ND Awards, Budapest International Foto Awards, and Tokyo International Foto Awards.
2023 - Analog Sparks International Competition (Architectural Photographer of the Year), Tokyo International Foto Awards (Gold), Annual Photography Awards, Px3 Prix De La Photographie, PhMuseum Photography Grant (Shortlist), Architecture MasterPrize, Budapest International Foto Awards, Finalist in Klompching Gallery’s FRESH (Finalist)
2022 - Annual Photography Awards (Architectural Photographer of the Year), Architecture Master Prize (Winner, Domestic Interiors, Honorable Mention, Industrial Exteriors), Aesthetica Art Prize, Tokyo International Foto Awards, Refocus Awards
2021 - Px3 Prix De La Photographie De Paris, Monovisions Photography Awards, American Illustration And American Photography (AI-AP), International Photography Awards, Tokyo International Foto Awards, Florida Museum Of Photographic Arts (Best in Show)
2020 - Budapest International Foto Awards (1st place Architecture, 1st Place Science), International Photography Awards, Tokyo International Foto Awards
2019 - International Photo Grant (1st Place), Px3 Prix De La Photographie (Gold – Fine Art/Architecture, Gold – Nature/Trees), Tokyo International Foto Awards, International Photography Awards, Felix Scholler Photo Award (Shortlist), The New York Center For Photographic Arts International Competition
2016 - United States Artists Fellowship Nominee
2015 - Felix Schoeller Photo Award Finalist
2014 - 4th Annual Juried Exhibition, Gallery 110 - 4th Annual Juried Exhibition (Jury Award)
2013 - International Photography Awards