“Immersion Done Right”

UTA Glass Alum Austin Fields Earns Praise in The New York Times.

Wednesday, May 27, 2026 • Art and Art History : Contact

UTA Glass Program student and alumni accomplishments continue to demonstrate the strength of the program and its role in preparing artists for both advanced study and professional practice. The program remains deeply engaged with both the technical and conceptual possibilities of glass as a contemporary medium.

Austin Fields wearing glasses and holding a vase with flowers.In April-May 2026, Austin Fields (BFA 2017, Studio Art – Glass) was featured in the two-person exhibition Between Utopias and the Abyss alongside artist Pàulla Scàvazzini at Kaliner Gallery.

The exhibition received a review in The New York Times by critic Seph Rodney, who described it as a compelling encounter between elemental forces and immersive environments. Rodney positions the exhibition within a broader conversation about contemporary installation art, concluding that “this is immersion done right: not as some back door that supposedly lets us into the artist’s mind, but rather as a chance to feel the heated wind that has already traveled through the work and made it what it is.”

Discussing Austin Fields’ sculptural work (a Texas native currently based in Los Angeles), Rodney notes that the artist’s “shiny and reflective” blown-glass forms softly interpret “the pressures of the elemental forces — the weight of a stone, the grasping desire of fire.” He further observes that “in each work there are inward curves where the glass has let itself fold and warp,” emphasizing the physical responsiveness and material sensitivity present in Fields’ practice.

Installation view of “Between Utopias and the Abyss: Austin Fields and Pàulla Scàvazzini” at Kaliner Gallery, NYC, April 2026. Scàvazzini’s work is the paint bleeding onto the floors, Fields’s works in glass. Next to it, the paintings by Sao-Paulo artist Pàulla Scàvazzini, in Rodney’s words, “dance between the all-consuming insatiability of fire and the fluid give and take of water,” creating “lush, lyrical fields of intermingled color schemes” that transform the gallery itself into an enveloping experience.

The review highlights the ways Fields’ work operates at the intersection of narrative, material experimentation, and embodied experience, reflecting the innovative and interdisciplinary approach fostered within UTA’s Glass Program.

Between Utopias and the Abyss is on view at Kaliner Gallery from April 23 – May 31, 2026.