Justin D.
Strom

Self/Non-Self: Recursive and Volatile

Self/Non-Self: Recursive and Volatile is an exhibition of mixed-media works by Baltimore artist Justin D. Strom. Strom’s series Self/Non-Self investigates a deep curiosity of the human body, creating a digital landscape of our unseen inner-spaces by combining elements of the real with those of the imagination. Strom constructs an aesthetic based on the human form as it is simultaneously shaped by, and reflective of, our digital age; an age that attempts to dissolve the distinction between virtual and physical spaces.

Engaging with issues of microbiology, cloning, and genetic sequencing, Strom uses a hybrid of photography, digital printmaking, and 3D composite imagery to build luminous 2D works. Dense abstract forms with no clear boundaries create an alternative interior with scenes of rich color, frozen explosions, and conglomerated forms that act as symbolic reminders of transformation and impermanence in a volatile world. These multi-layered works offer a microbiological investigation of forms in imagined space that revel in the structures and processes of the body by exploring it from the inside. 

Justin D. Strom

Justin D. Strom is is a mixed-media artist, an Associate Professor in Printmaking and Digital Imaging, and the Graduate Director of the Arts Department at the University of Maryland, College Park. Born in Columbia, Missouri, he received his BFA in Painting at Columbia College-Columbia and his MFA in Studio Art from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has worked as an Assistant Printer at Highpoint Editions in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and a Production Assistant at Tandem Press in Madison, Wisconsin. Along the way he’s delivered pizzas, stocked grocery shelves, driven a truck, worked a tarmac, and still tries to get on a skateboard every now and again.