Check Out Justin Watson’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Justin Watson.

Hi Justin, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I am a conceptual artist based out of Salt Lake City, Utah and Los Angeles. I am primarily connected to Los Angeles through Office Space, a gallery of radical humans. I am currently assisting the gallery through researching experimental curatorial projects and provide business acumen and consulting. I was recently assigned as an assistant director, but we are now currently reorganizing to counteract the limitations of such titles.

I primarily work out of Salt Lake City right now. My artwork, however, has little to do with notions of Salt Lake City as a geographic or cultural site. Utah is a state of extreme religious indoctrination, and it tends to ebb into much of the local work displayed or shared. While I am interested in the ideological constructs and various facets of the culture as a case study, I no longer feel connected to it. More phantom limbs than a biological appendages.

My story does intertwine with the history of Salt Lake City, though. My mother’s family moved to Salt Lake City with the first group of pioneers, and they were, and many still are, FLDS (i.e. Warren Jeffs et al), so I have seen and was raised around fanatical behaviors and rituals. When you see fanaticism as a child, what you see and what you comprehend blur into a surreal abstraction: everything has the appearance of seeming correct, but the reality of the situation is skewed. You notice small things at first, word choices, mannerisms and the undertones in speech. To my great fortune, after my misguided grandparents sent my mother to the Jeffs compound when she was twelve, they sent her back because she talked too much.

I never thought about my personal story much, as in rooting out a direction or purpose in life. I have always swayed and given haphazard pirouettes that led me to falling on my face in strange places. When I was younger, I set up and tore down banquets, I sold music equipment at call center, I ran a woodshop, and I worked in a college archive for nearly ten years. While attending university for my undergraduate (I have a sculpture degree), I started a trash and recycling company with my family. We are nearing our twelfth year of operation. Later this month, I’m establishing a nonprofit organization to help furnish homes and apartments for low-income or homeless populations. I never thought I would be in this position, but I also feel adept and competent enough to facilitate it, which was not easy to establish.

I bring this history up because my art practice functions in a similar manner. I am always in search of new experiences, processes and intersections of knowledge, theory and praxis. My MFA in Sculpture Intermedia (new media) was just another sequence of investigations. More specifically, I am in awe of the duplicity of reality as coded through the media, politics and society and I translate these complex patterns into video art, installations and (my personal favorite) cutting-edge curatorial projects. Critique is paramount to my practice.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
No, nothing has ever been smooth. I grew up on food stamps and lived in destitution until 5-6 years ago (I’m now 38). I also grew up in an extremely religious city as someone who never felt connected to it. In more recent years, my mother died suddenly with Acute Myeloid Leukemia in 2019 and the COVID-19 pandemic evoked a shroud over my ability to personally mourn. Also, I felt like I was living a reenactment of the year prior: blood cancer patients typically have their own dedicated wing of the hospital, and they required gloves, masks, surgical soap et al, with every visit. My family lost some good friends to covid. The denial of the pandemic by many living in the state of Utah further amplifies the grief due to a vacuum of doubt generated by the fanatical ideology of the region.

I don’t like smooth roads anyway, though, I prefer the jagged angular leaps I took in occupations and skillsets.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I primarily love the network of artists at Office Space and through other experiences that I have had the privilege to get to know throughout the years. I personally specialize in more technologically focused areas (video art, cinema, 3d modeling, game engines, 3d printing) and translate them into installations. Sometimes, I curate shows in a similar manner but pulling from this network.

The piece I am still contemplating is a piece I showed at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art in late 2019 title a farewell to images (3-channel, 16:00 minutes). It was in a 6-channel exhibition, with multiple pieces using synchronous channels. The piece was a culmination of 8 months of sitting in hospitals, reading about Andre Malraux’s disturbing colonizer development of the art catalog and examining how the identity can disintegrate when exposed to an overabundance of images and information. I also included sounds captured from haunted sites all over the world and bundled in too many references to name. I love the synthesis such mediums offer.

I think what sets me apart from others is my genuine desire to help others without expectations. I am not motivated by money or power.

What matters most to you? Why?
Time. Being present because it is so difficult for me to do. There are so many things one can do with time, and I feel our society gravitates towards monetizing it. I learned early on that time is the absolute. It carries more value than any currency could ever hope to offer.

Contact Info:

• Website: justinwatson.com
• Instagram: @justin._.watson
• Other: https://vimeo.com/justinrwatson

Image Credits
Justin Watson