TL;DR: Cassidy Austin is a Florence-trained oil painter whose work sits directly at the intersection of two collector instincts: watches and fine art. Her pieces on KROLUX center on the hand, close and confident, wearing a specific reference that matters to the story. If you already collect one thing seriously, her work is worth a second look.
Most of what we cover on this blog is the watch itself. This one's about something adjacent that a lot of our clients haven't considered yet: original art built around the exact objects they already collect.
Who is Cassidy Austin, and why does KROLUX carry her work?
Cassidy is an oil painter who trained in Florence, Italy, the kind of classical training that shows up in how deliberately these pieces are built, layer by layer, rather than rushed. We started carrying her work because it does something almost nobody else is doing: it paints the watch as a full character in the composition rather than a prop dropped into a generic scene.
A serious watch collector and a serious art collector are chasing the same feeling, honestly. Both are drawn to something made with genuine skill, produced in limited numbers, and worth more the longer you look at it. Cassidy's work sits right at that overlap.
What does her work actually look like?
Close and confident, most often centered on a hand wearing a specific reference rather than the watch alone on a table or wrist shot. Her "Rolex Hulk" piece sets the all-green Submariner against a deep violet background, playing the vivid dial against the shadowed backdrop the same way the watch's own nickname plays off the comic-book character. Her "Flipping Greenbacks" piece, part of a series built around confidence and financial freedom, centers a manicured hand and a luxury timepiece rendered in deep, deliberate green tones throughout the whole composition.
Why paint watches specifically, instead of the usual subjects?
Because a serious watch already carries a story before anyone paints it, movement, provenance, the reason someone chose that specific reference over every other option available to them. Her "Face Me" series takes that further, painting legendary timepieces with the same reverence portraiture usually reserves for a person's face. The Daytona piece from that series, inspired by the redesign unveiled at Watches and Wonders 2025, treats the watch itself as the subject worth that level of attention.
What should a watch collector actually expect if they're considering one of these pieces?
An original, one-of-one oil painting. Prices across her available pieces on KROLUX range from roughly $4,795 to over $15,000, depending on scale and complexity. Each piece is sized for genuine wall presence, several run well over 60 inches, built to anchor a room the same way a serious watch anchors a collection.
How does this fit into what KROLUX actually does?
We're a watch dealer first, and we didn't set out to become an art gallery. But enough of our clients collect seriously across categories, cars, art, watches, that carrying work built specifically around this world felt like a genuine fit rather than a stretch. If you already understand why a specific reference matters, you'll understand what these paintings are doing immediately.
If you want to see the full collection or talk through a specific piece, reach out. This is a different kind of purchase than a watch, and it deserves the same careful conversation.
Jerred at KROLUX
