"...understanding through attempts..."
I met Justin in the gallery space during the first day of installation, a week before the opening of his show. We found a place to sit on the couches underneath the stairs, and since he had it with him, Justin began by reading his artist statement. Although I nodded along and made a few brief notes during the reading, much of his lyricism washed over my head in a flood of vocabulary. I leaned our conversation towards his physical constructions to reground myself, and he was game to map out the layers involved. Yet every objective element was paralleled by a concept, and each interlaced in such a way that I began to blur objects and subjects. I found myself navigating his concepts tactually. With Justin's prior journey through his materials guiding the way, our conversation felt sculptural in and of itself.
"The notion is still opaque but through language it becomes porous"
