Tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do.
I’m Justin Ortiz, I make paintings, drawings, sculptures and lithographs. I was born in upstate New York in 1998, but have lived in Los Angeles, CA for the last four years. I received my undergraduate degree from SAIC in 2020.
How do you maintain a steady art practice?
I like to paint every day except the weekends. I am of the mind that the more you show up, the more things can happen. That doesn’t mean showing up when you’re not into it and ruining a painting, but I will show up just to move my tables around and clean my brushes. Put it this way: there’s an episode in the third season of Twin Peaks where a guy has to sit at this desk every day and watch an empty glass box in a top secret research facility, and they never explain why. Then one day, I think it’s when he’s paying attention the least, there’s a huge lightning flash and an entity appears in the box. That feels very much to do with painting and the stage one needs to set, the paraphernalia, the routine.
What is one of the bigger challenges you and/or other artists are struggling with these days and how do you see it developing?
I think artists make too much work, myself included. Ideally I would be making 20 paintings in a year that could potentially leave my studio. Everyone adapts to their situation, if you’re getting asked to do multiple shows in a year you can certainly hunker down and make a little more work, but I think some quality is lost generally speaking.
What are you really excited about right now?
Recently a character is appearing in my work facing away from the viewer, towards whatever entity or void is facing out. I am spreading it out across drawings, paintings and lithographs. It has been a useful device for making work.
What materials do you use in your work and what is your process like?
A lot of it is about formalizing drawing, making a drawing “real.” I always drew as a kid. Drawing for me is a compulsion. I have pads of paper everywhere and I keep everything I make, like a hoarder. Except everything is useful eventually. It could be years before I use a drawing and no stone goes unturned. I paint with thin layers of oil paint, sometimes multiple underpaintings depending on the optical effect and what is called for.
Lithography plates I produce en masse in my studio using grease pencil on a porous plastic sheet, mostly as a break from other projects. If I like something, I can bring it to the printmaking studio and collaborate with printers to produce an edition. Fast and loose drawings are transformed after being processed a dozen or so times into something completely new.
What artists have you been thinking a lot about right now and why?
Carroll Dunham, Sigmar Polke, Gary Larson and Jason Fox. I can feel the bodies in their work and above all they make artwork as if something else is possessing them. I always thought that painting was unique because it feels like you’re communicating with other painters living or dead when you do it. I always look at the Dutch masters of mythological figure painting, and tattoos on the internet.
Do you ever look back on your older work in order to inform your future?
I do that often. I think you have to separate yourself from older work to understand it more versus in the heat of the moment.
In regards to your making, what is something that you’ve always wanted to do and are working towards achieving it?
I would like to exhibit my paintings alongside my lithographs and I would like to make a thick book of drawings.
Do you have any daily rituals?
Walk the dog, see friends… I have been keeping a daily email correspondence with my friend Leroy. We mostly talk about boring life moments and how our paintings are progressing. I love it and recommend it.
What are some recent, upcoming or current projects you are working on?
A painting of mine will hang at the Innertown Pub in Chicago on 12/15. The neon sign above the doorway says ‘Home to the Arts.’
See you there, Chicago!
Interview conducted and edited by Liam Owings