I met Justin Duffus in 2015, and I’ve loved his paintings and drawings ever since. Justin works in a nicely lit studio, in the Georgetown neighborhood of Seattle, when he is not teaching painting. His studio is surrounded by shipping containers, and you have to walk on the roof of one to get into his workspace. It’s cool.

Originally from Pasadena, Justin studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and wow can he paint.

The view from one bank of windows in Justin’s studio overlooks shipping containers, and a view of downtown Seattle. On a nice day he also has a view of the mountains.

While Seattle has grown extensively in the years since I’ve lived here, it still has cool areas like where Justin’s studio is.

“Duffus uses his collection of found photos to build gentle, surreal worlds, layering faded anonymous faces, inserting people into living rooms, picnic sites, vacant foyers, superimposing limbs and heads where they weren’t meant to be. The paintings are built of strata paint and turpentine on canvas which are intermittently scraped and sanded in spots to excavate glimmers of pigment beneath.” (Amanda Manitach, City Arts, December 23, 2016) I can immediately identify a Justin Duffus painting.

It was a rainy mid-February studio visit.

I’m crazy for the pink painting, and his bachelorette party series is super.

Justin doesn’t realize how talented he is, although everyone else does, and he is nice as nice can be. There is an opening this Thursday night, March 5th, from 6-8 pm at Linda Hodges Gallery in Seattle.