Justin "Projekt" Rowley
www.urbanprojekts.com
The people of the inner-city are the heart of our diverse culture and the focus
of my work. Frustration over poverty and injustice in these communities
inevitably leads to violence. This conflict represents the human will to
overcome inequality, the fight to resist the place and roles assigned to us by
the accidents of our birth.
The way I make art is simple: I photograph and sketch the people and places I
know and compose and paint these figures in the urban landscapes that they
inhabit. The images are composed to highlight specific content, and become a
part of my evolving symbol set of urban iconography. These symbols are based on
my personal associations. I use these symbols as tools to create a visual
language and establish an alternative to traditional artistic models.
My work purposefully confronts the viewer. My paintings are composed to invite
direct eye contact with figures and participation in their world. This
involvement is important as my work explores the degradation of human values
for the constructed values that replaced them. The unvarnished humanity and
struggles of these figures conjure unexpected parallels with the viewer,
creating a space in which the viewer and figure may, for a moment, come to an
understanding. Passive observation is replaced with dynamic dialectic in this
middle-ground.
My work honors the people who struggle daily to maintain their humanity in a
violent urban landscape. The dignity of these figures is often overlooked. The
magnitude of their struggle is frequently ignored. My work invites the viewer
to examine the nature of this struggle and question the larger cultural
problems so vividly reflected on the razor‚s edge of inner-city life. The human
will and desire to overcome suffering is the source of my expression.
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