Heaven Gallery

Justin B Williams’ strange image landscapes are at once familiar and foreign, nostalgic and alien, like a well-worn recurrent dream or a new favorite quilt at the thrift store. Populated with unknowable situations, projected desires and the like, they seemingly unearth subconscious thoughts, deja-vu sentiments or unknown anxieties. Justin’s works function like maps, organizing and reorganizing his own inner tangential philosophies, experiences, fever dream thoughts or esoteric rants. His work calls to mind the representational work of Philip Guston, infusing cartoonish imaginative interpretations of personal narratives with a sincere sense of wonder and a mild sense of irony. On a purely formalist level, Justin has an impeccable sense of color and composition—if Matisse were alive today and knew about rock n’ roll, Freudian theories, cartoons and Raymond Pettibon, this might be what his paintings look like.

To read the Interview, go to Anthology