A Painter’s Journey

   Justin Smith is a painter and conceptual artist based in Charlottesville, Virginia.

   Raised on a cattle farm by a sculptor father and photographer mother, he began his formal education in the arts studying at School of Visual Arts in New York City, then moved to Los Angeles to study theatric and film production at The Strasburg Institute. During his time in L.A. he was commissioned to reproduce several master renaissance works, working in trompe l’oeil on furniture along with mural design for retail and private collector/dealers.

    In 1993 Justin was invited as the first resident-guest artist at Kunsthaus Rheinania in Cologne, Germany and was instrumental in the demolition and renovation of their Tower Gallery.  It was here he learned to take risks in his art by breaking from old styles and techniques, discovering new ways to express by embracing more abstract concepts.

  While touring Europe, he worked as an artisan and commercial artist, painting en plein air at l’atelier de La Gardy selling to tourists between St.Remy and Avignon, France. Then outside Geneva Switzerland where he progressed his skills in conceptual 3D design via carpentry and masonry, while continuing to paint his designs on furniture.

   Justin returned to the States in 1996 moving to Raleigh, NC working as a journeyman carpenter and produced a small but dramatic body of work by painting on both sides of the canvas and built custom reversible frames for each piece. Several of which sold to private collections and afforded him the opportunity to move back to NYC.

    “Either you make NYC work for you or you end up working for NYC”, Justin travelled the latter path spending the next decade managing several iconic bars, as a sales consultant for a private REIT fund and completed his BA in English:Writing and BFA in Painting from Hunter College.  He painted sporadically and rarely ever showed his work.  Burnt out by the quality of life he left New York City.

    Moving to Charlottesville he utilized his skills in renovation to restore the historic “Rock Store” in Woods Mill, Virginia between Lynchburg and Charlottesville and opened a unique curiosity/antique shop and gallery “ebb&flow” in 2013 showcasing some of the better local artists and artisans. .

   Throughout his travels he’d won best in show and honorable mentions in group shows in CT, Koln, Raleigh, and NYC. He was art editor of The Carrillon Magazine at The Canterbury School and was invited as sole juror of ARTEL’s 26th annual Cinco Banderas Expo in Pensacola, Florida where he recognized a genuine joy in lifting up other artists and inspired the opening of his own gallery.

In 2022 the Lord called on him to close shop and dedicate himself exclusively to his own painting.

Justin is a passionate numismatist whose love for art, history, and economies has greatly impacted and influenced his work.

My Process

  I confront a blank surface with a deliberate surrender, (sometimes a traditionally gessoed and stretched linen, sometimes raw, unprimed canvas, wood panel, drywall or paper) I attack it without concept, narrative, or restraint. Charcoal, ink, acrylic, pastel and or thinned oil are thrown, scraped, dripped, and smeared in rapid, instinctive gestures. The first violent pass is not meant for beauty but energy, a chaotic field of marks, stains, and linear collisions that obliterates the white void and establishes the temperature for everything that follows.

  From the mess I begin to see shapes and half-remembered configurations that  emerge like archaeological finds.  Motifs start to surface that began in my drawings and sketchbooks—recurring symbols, figures, and tensions.

  A dominant image or a constellation of forms declares itself, I shift into a slower more deliberate mode. I draw with my Meisterstück and oil brush until the composition locks into a rigorous, classically informed composition. By working in layered glazes of oil, I refine and wonder if sculpting would be an easier process to clarify what began as visceral into disciplined precision, luminosity, and weight. The final painting is an exorcism, an ordering of chaos, revealing meaning wrested from the brink.

In the end, every “finished” canvas reveals that even the most explosive impulse can be redeemed by craft, proportion, and reverence for hard-won truths.