Meet Justin Wood | Artist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Justin Wood and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Justin, why did you pursue a creative career?
I went to art school because I wanted to design album covers for my favorite bands. I wanted to work in the music business. I was already building websites and creating artwork for my band in high school so the idea of doing something for a living that I was doing for fun was very attractive. While I was at art school my 1st year painting and drawing teachers encouraged me change majors from design to fine art. I fell in love with painting. The process. The smells. The history. I decided that I wanted to pursue a career as a painter and support myself with design.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
Things really started to change for me when I first turned a video projector at my paintings. I was performing live visuals with bands and DJs in New York City and I was learning the associated technologies. Projection mapping was starting to blossom on YouTube and the displays I was watching were mind blowing and I wanted to try it myself. I knew that projectionists would start by using a photograph of the structure that they were mapping to design the video layer. So taking the laziest approach possible I photographed one of my paintings and projected the photograph of the painting on top of itself. I used my VJ software to apply color changing effects in real time. It was like a bomb went off in my head. I instantly knew I was onto something. From there I started to infuse video into everything. I created paintings on screens with video backlighting them. I started creating projection mapped installations and I got to work with some of my favorite bands by building installations at their festivals. Ultimately this evolved into the projection photography that I am pursuing now. Since August 2020 I have been living full-time on the road traveling America creating remote projection installations for photographic and video artworks. I began engaging with NFTs in early 2021 and found the prospect of selling photographs and videos this way to be incredibly liberating. I am able to participate in an art economy from anywhere and I finally have an outlet for this kind of work that didn’t exist before.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
My brother, Robie, was a huge influence on me growing up. I always aspired to his level of talent and would copy his drawings and paintings. He would make these model baseball stadiums out of watercolor paper that blew my mind. I could never recreate them on my own. He is an architect and visiting him at architecture school and seeing all the model making and the drawing studios made me want to study something different like that. Ultimately that is how I ended up in art school. Certainly my parents for always going above and beyond to support whatever I was doing and sacrificing so much so I could pursue an obscure career path. My wife has been my partner throughout. Building installations with me all night. Pushing me to continue and always having my back. I’d probably be half dead in a Bushwick basement by now if it wasn’t for her.

Website: https://justinwood.art

Instagram: https://instagram.com/justinrobiewood

Twitter: https://twitter.com/justinrobiewood