Justin Nordine's Profile

Justin Nordine's Profile | Gallery

970-985-9649 |

The work I have produced over the years stems from my curiosity of the Christian faith, life, and our struggles with self-awareness and acceptance. Life is something we all deal with day to day, from religious influences, our childhood and the challenges we face to how we take various paths during our life which create our past, present, and future. These are my choice themes for all of my work. My themes often get narrowed down to more specific ideas and, in turn, thought provoking work is produced. “As we advance in life it becomes more and more difficult, but in fighting the difficulties the inmost strength of the heart is developed.” ~Vincent Van Gogh
The exploration of life is a challenging theme to base any type of work, however, it creates the most intriguing questions, statements, and curiosities. For years, I have pondered the meaning and purpose of life. I use elements such as sticks, dirt, and even man made objects, these are imperative to my artistic developments and my search for understanding of what is life. Using these objects as textures and additional elements to my work, helps me to dig deep to paint, draw or design my quest for understanding life.
My journey of painting started by using a variety of paint types and mediums and has evolved my current use of lights, and mirrors. Lights create an ambiance that often provoke a memory or experience, just as smell does. I use lights to impact the viewer. Mirrors give the viewer a chance to be a part of the painting. I love the looseness of oil. Adding turpentine to saturate the paint, creates drips that most would feel were mistakes, I see as a purpose intended to be a part of the canvas. Textures reach out to you as if they were sculpted out of the painting.
I enjoy painting larger canvases. The canvas intimidates me as I prepare the canvas with textures I feel need to be placed. Gesso soon follows to commit the canvas for paint. I pick colors that will suit the mood of the theme and canvas as a whole.
Other mediums that I tend to explore, such as drawing and illustration, usually have the human element. The human body is life. Studying the body and it’s movements and what purpose our bodies are meant for; love, sex, childbirth, interaction, and death, help my creativity.
Using life as a main theme creates multiple challenges, not only for me, but also for the viewer. My interpretation of what I have created is often seen in a totally different way by the viewer. This brings something up within them that I often had not anticipated nor intended. This is the driving force for me.
Furthering my artistic expression I have begun incorporating digital images to explore a new medium using inks. I take digital photos that inspire me and manipulate them. I then reproduce them on a canvas, a tedious task that is new to me. Objects have more purpose and forces placement of the paint, making this style more precise.
My work is not generally decorative. It is a functioning piece of art that asks you to dig deep based on the title and theme of what I have created. Looking for God? A purpose driven life? Pregnancy and childbirth? Social acceptance? These are just a few questions I ask you, the viewer to think and about as you question my work.