Los Angeles based artist Justin Bower’s larger than life oil paintings feature anonymous subjects that appear digitized, but are painstakingly hand-painted. Through their expressive, glitchy faces, first covered in Hi-Fructose Vol 31, Bower examines our close relationship with technology. In our 2014 interview with the artist, he said, “My work is foremost about the destabilization of the contemporary subject in an increasing control society, and often I use the digital realm as the environment to place them in. It’s almost an ontological build up from scratch, building a new idea of who we are.” On September 10th, Bower will debut a long-awaited new series at UNIX Gallery in New York with his exhibit “The Humiliations”. According to Bower, we are losing our free will as a result of our growing subservience to technology. For instance, we are dependent on biotechnology in our everyday life and it has become inevitable to not to use it. In this sense, he defines ‘humiliations’ as an undermining of our own singularity as a species. Bower communicates this message through fragmenting his subjects, where digital or artificial qualities have become a part of their makeup. Throughout the series, this so called glitchyness continually warps and displaces each person’s identity. Take a look at some of Justin Bower’s latest paintings, including “The Humiliations” series, below.
The explosive abstract portraiture of Los Angeles based artist
As a young girl, artist