Portrait of Aurelia Astor on a blue sofa in her atelier
Aurelia Astor seated at a slanted desk, drawing with a pen in her studio, surrounded by shelves, artworks and art materials.

My name is Aurelia Astor.

I am an artist from Austria and create drawings and original linocuts in very small editions. My works are figurative, with an expressionist character and an erotic, humorous touch.

Aside from my art, I am a mother, wife and graphic designer, and I live with my family in Vienna.

A step in the process of a drawing created using Aurelia Astor's Rorschach method.

My technique

My daily Rorschach is the method that has helped me solve a problem – the problem of not being able to decide what to design and in what style to realise it.

I always start with the same process: I fill a sheet of paper with wild lines and look at the jumble until I discover something I like. I emphasise these figures, shapes and plants more strongly using thicker lines, shading and patterns. In this way, my discoveries become visible to everyone.

It’s a very beautiful and meditative process that has brought me joy time and again for years.

The process

When I’m happy with a drawing, I turn it into a vector graphic, which I later transform into a linocut.

Unlike in traditional printmaking, where the aim is to apply ink as evenly and sparingly as possible, I am interested in how light interacts with the surface of the artwork. Material therefore plays a key role in my work.

Yours,

Aurelia Astor