The images in my paintings arise from a profound love of nature. The many varied colors and patterns in nature are what inspire me as an artist. Growing up among the hills of northern England cultivated my fondness of tranquil settings, and I believe my paintings often reflect this. I work predominantly with oil and acrylic and tend to surround myself with as many as ten paintings in various stages of completion. My best work usually starts with preliminary sketches which enable me to work out value and composition. After the initial structure has been established I allow myself to be spontaneous and accepting of the unforeseen “happy accidents” that occur in the final painting process.
My paintings have evolved through many different styles and techniques over the course of my career. I started out gravitating towards photo realism and then moved through more impressionistic-type paintings. Of late my landscapes have become more spontaneous and nonrepresentational than the majority of my previous work. Artists that have influenced me are innumerable, but two impressionists that have really left a mark on me are Claude Monet and John Henry Thwachtman. Thwachtman’s painting “Arques-la-Bataille” is beyond genius in its design, yet at the same time, as his friend Childe Hassam once said, “…was delicate even to evasiveness.” Recently I have been captivated by the color field painters of the 1950’s, such as Clyfford Still and Mark Rothko. Their pure emotional approach and disregard for detail has been a complete revelation for me and my technique.
I feel I have just begun to scratch the surface of what is possible as an artist and have found a connection with what Rothko believed, “The progression of a painter’s work, as it travels in time from point to point, will be toward clarity…and to achieve this clarity is, inevitably, to be understood.”

-Paul Justen