Justin is a Chicago Metro Area resident who creates paintings, digital graphics, and websites. His favorite pastimes besides painting and art are travel and photography, exercise, and spending time with his family.
Justin was born and raised in the Chicago area, between steel and glass skyscrapers and endless cornfields. During his youthful years he played in yards behind brick bungalows and wood framed foursquares, climbed trees, and rode bikes around forest preserves. His family traveled a lot by car and moved a few times, but always moved back to the same area.
After high school he went downstate to the University of Illinois at Champaign and completed a degree in architecture. Travel was never far away during this time, with several long forays in Europe during the summer and as part of a college exchange program. The next year he continued on at the University for another 2 and half years, earning Masters' degrees in Architecture and business. By this time he had completed two summer internships at large companies in downtown Chicago, being given the opportunity to work on projects for the Lincoln Park Zoo and Asian office buildings.
Following graduation he worked for a year before moving to Portland on the West Coast. The next year he married Jackie, his girlfriend from college, and made a career change. Not finding the creative output he needed in architecture, he moved into the relatively new field of digital graphic and web design.
Jackie's job as an engineer moved them to Oakland then to Boise, Idaho. They had their first daughter then moved back to Chicago after 7 years of living in the West. During this time Justin became inspired by European surrealist painters. Picking up a paint brush, he tried oil painting for the first time without any formal training. After several years he started to appear in art fairs and local retail stores or galleries.
Justin tries to paint on a daily basis and continues his work with digital graphics. When not painting, Justin uses his free time to take his family into the city, on bike rides, and roadtrips to inspiring destinations, usually desolate and extreme, and always visually exciting.
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