We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Justin Bower. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with justin below.

Justin, appreciate you joining us today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

My project I started a decade or more ago, with a question: in what way is life different from other artists in the past? My answer was the destabilizing effect the rapid escalation of technology has on the individual subject. This lead me to question how to interpret this on canvas, and as I came upon an ancient Hindu painting of a God with multiple sense organs I realized how to start. The eye of a viewer wants to “fix” the subject as a stable image, when you start to multiply eyes, noses and mouths, the image destabilizes the viewer, creating a metonym for the viewer and the subject of the painting. I created an open system of flesh and abstraction incongruent to each other yet creating this unstable figure or face. This was both a personal journey and a theoretical one studied through paint and portraiture.

Justin, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I create cultural objects of value based on the lineage of art history, the engagement of writers and thinkers of the time and finally the art market. It takes about 10,000 hours or 10 years to be able to develop a skill set that proves to be a master of your craft and is worthy of sending it out to the public at large. When collectors invest in my work, they are not only investing in a commodity but the cultural value brought to it by the artist and his/her well strived vision and craft. I paint large scale paintings of heads that touch on the destabilizing effect technology has on the human and how ingrained the effect has had psychologically and physically. Painting has been around for hundreds of years and it was important to me to create a unique vision specific to my age and time. Creating work that would have never made sense in the past. These are paintings of the now, tethered to the history of art, creating a seamless trajectory of the human subject.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I had been floundering after college for a few years, living and painting in a small studio. I had never wanted to go to grad school as I perceived the current institutions as navel gazing and antithetical to painting. One night after a long party I was asked to walk two ladies home. As we got half way, a hoard of men surrounded us, bent on a gang initiation or some kind of violence. I began to defend myself and the women, punching many of them to the ground. Unfortunately, one had a knife, and swinging it around. I tried to go for the knife but he got me good in the left side of my torso. Stabbed and bleeding, I figured my life up until now has bared little fruit. I decided to go to graduate school after that. When I graduated, I had my first solo show in Beverly Hills, Ca. And from there my work went to NYC and then to around the world. From stabbed in back alleys to showing my paintings around the world.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on NFTs. (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice)

Like success without work, I don’t believe in it (NFT’s)

Contact Info:

• Website: https://Www.justinbower.com
• Instagram: @justinbowerart
• Other: [email protected]
  [email protected]

Image Credits

All mine, Justin Bower