Justin Johnson
cyberart
I've been involved in art, in one form or another, since I was born.
In love with drawing from childhood, and eventually digital art
Justin Johnson hails from Riverside California, which is mostly famous for being near LA and being the birthplace of the US citrus industry. With no formal traditional training in his art, Justin is self-taught, though is an electrical engineering major! As an elementary & middle school student, it was drawing cars. As a high school & early college student, it was mostly music production. But later into college, Justin got more into digital art through creative coding platforms. Sharing the creations came later, mostly using open source platforms and mobile apps. This was the introduction to glitch art. Picking up skills in Photoshop and Gimp is the point where Johnson got a bit more serious with his art. Starting a dedicated art Instagram in 2016, glitch art as a discipline has also enjoyed increased popularity.
Glitch art is an emerging style where the artist utilizes digital or analogue errors aesthetically. The way they do this is either through corrupting data or by physical change to electronic devises - or a combination of both.
Making art from errors, and combining nature with tech
When asked to describe his artistic process, Justin talks about the technical side, but also the chaotic process itself. A major source of inspiration is album artworks, and this is translated into the album covers Justin creates for bands. Combining natural elements like coastlines, mountains, and skylines with such explicitly digital images – the result is an interesting juxtaposition of tone and content.
Making beauty out of corrupted images... But with a bit extra… In some ways, you can tell it's glitch art, but I also try to incorporate some 3-D elements and depth as well, which helps bring out the shape in my artworks.
Always working on the creative progress, and proud of every step
Rarely having a solid idea of end result when starting a piece, but the technical process is similar every time and Johnson is considering creating a tutorial to help others discover the niche. A strict taskmaster, if the end result isn’t blowing Justin’s mind, he will start over from the beginning. Johnson keeps many of his early pieces on his feed, because the contrast is interesting and simply the fact that without them he wouldn’t be where he is today!
Naming stuff is one of the most difficult parts, sometimes it takes me just as long to come up with a name. This is part of why many works are in a 10-part series!
