Justin Forbes grew up in a house full of artists – his father was a photographer; his mother a dancer – which shaped his way of looking at the world: ‘with a frame around it’. He studied painting and design in New York and has been drawing all his life. Much of his work is inspired by New Orleans, a “great city to re-create yourself”, he says, where he went to teach art. He now lives in Denton, TX and has been painting commercially since 1989. His definition of what art is today?
The process of making it is art in itself, he says – it doesn’t have to be something you hang on a wall. Art is an expression of a state of mind. Forbes’ state of mind is firmly rooted, it seems, in social commentary, vividly portrayed and sometimes lampooned through his works.