ABOUT ME
BIOGRAPHY
"Until my teenage years, I lived in a big city, in East Europe, in front of the main entrance of a beautiful cemetery. I used to walk there, and every day I saw corpses passing by, according to the orthodox ritual, in opened coffins. They were followed by their relatives for a last tribute. Sometimes, especially when there was a fanfare, I followed myself the procession to the grave..."
"Drawing has always been one of my passions and favorite pastimes. From a very early age, I spent hours drawing. I was a good student, but all my lessons and homework were accompanied by drawings I created alongside them. The subjects were usually quirky characters placed in settings of my own invention. At home, I also practiced copying portraits from Old Master paintings—working from black-and-white photographs—but what I loved most was creating scenes that didn't exist."
"In truth, after all these years, things haven’t really changed... Over time, my black-and-white drawings have increasingly given way to paintings. The narrative element plays a decisive role in much of my work, and exploring the interaction between “reality” and “sur-reality” is, to a large extent, what fuels my art."
Justinian B. is essentially self-taught; He also studied art history and the visual arts at the University of Quebec in Montreal, and during a stay in France, in Paris, he discovered the ancient tempera painting techniques according to Andreï Roublev, using powdered pigments and egg tempera on wood.
Justinian B. has three cultures and three home lands. Currently he shares his life between France and Canada.