Justin Strom
1980–
Through his signature bubble technique, Justin Strom transports viewers into his paintings. He allows collectors to imagine and feel exactly what’s beyond the horizon or on the other side of the foliage he paints with moody colors, intense, texture, and an evocative depth of shading.
Personal History
Strom was born in Fridley, Minnesota, in 1980 but quickly moved to Texas where he would call home until age 12. Even though his mother was a landscape painter and he had access to all the Bob Ross VHS tapes at home, his first artistic influence came from his father. He worked for a home builder and had blueprints all over the place. At the age of 8, Justin Strom began to make perspective drawings of buildings and streets and eventually, he started drawing floor plans, too. It became such a passion that his parents bought him a drafting table and everything he needed to draw his buildings. This gift breathed life into the creativity of a young, emerging artist. Eventually, Strom branched out and started drawing characters and people, too.
READ MORE + Most of the art Justin Strom made in his teens, once he progressed from blueprint-inspired drawing, focused on cartoon characters and people’s faces. After high school, Strom went to the Minnesota School of Drafting to pursue this as a career but shortly after his first internship, he realized it wasn’t what he ultimately wanted to do in life. This was a very tough but pivotal moment for him. He realized that it meant starting over from scratch. Strom stopped everything artistic and began working in construction. While this departure from creating art could have been detrimental to becoming a success in the art world, everything changed three years later, when he started his own painting company. Justin Strom discovered the world of faux finishing and this slowly ushered art back into his life. Strom has had ADD most of his life and needed a way to get the many creative thoughts out of his head, so he started painting on his own at home and found that his brain calmed down when he did. So, he never stopped. It is here when all the influence of his mother’s paintings returned as a flood of inspiration. He began learning to paint, going all in with canvases and paints, and working on his first artworks to sell. He would paint every night and eventually, Justin Strom sold over 100 works during this time. Then he started painting motorcycles, cars, and other objects, using a lot of airbrushing. This is where Justin Strom would find his signature Bubble technique. Most of Justin Strom’s paintings are significantly influenced by his mood at the time. He expresses a mood in all his paintings. Sometimes this is a dark scene, but other times, Strom creates brighter, cheerful works of art that are each rich with texture and depth of perspective, just like his early blueprint drafting. His primary goal as an artist has always been have his own style so that when people see his paintings, they know it is a Strom work of art. Thanks to his trademarked bubble technique, something that took him six years to fine-tune and master, Justin Strom has that signature style and it is taking the art world by storm. To inquire about collecting the artwork of Justin Strom, attend one of Park West’s online auction weekends or contact a sales associate at either sales@parkwestgallery.com or (866) 995-0904 ext. 4.
