Justin Liam O’Brien’s self-portrait Pride (2024) takes its inspiration from one of the works featured in his Semiose exhibition All Sunsets Risen. It is the artist’s very first lithograph, produced at the Idem studio in Paris as a limited edition of 40 copies. In this Mannerist-inspired work, the artist turns his gaze on himself in the same way he views the people he portrays in his work, seeking to balance fidelity to the model with a certain idealization. In Pride, he generates psychological tension through the juxtaposition of his body with the architecture and the darkened landscape of the background. As a counterpoint to the artist’s raised face, a hand holds a burning match, a symbol of both hope and defiance.

All Sunsets Risen
Solo exhibition of Justin Liam O’Brien, from May 4 to June 15, 2024

The title of Justin Liam O’Brien’s exhibition evokes a dual movement in two opposing directions: sunsets / risen, and as always, when contradictory forces meet, there comes a moment when they neutralize each-other and come to a standstill. Freeze… on the image. Yet there’s nothing to do with photographic snaps in all of this, but rather the clash of two cultures. Firstly, that of computer software, 3D imaging, video games and a training course at an animation school—in short, the digital image and the screen, the protective barrier that a teenage Justin erected between himself and the conservative, homophobic environment of Suffolk County on Long Island.

All Sunsets Risen showcases the state of grace of this dual movement of liberation: that of leaving the screen behind, as if coming out of the closet, integrating queer culture into canvasses that speak of masculine tastes, depicted in a classical tradition. In order to appreciate just how far he’s come, one needs to take a look at Justin Liam O’Brien’s early paintings. At first, his figures were more rounded and simplified, still influenced by 3D modelling: “the way I approach light, shadow, color and form is undeniably influenced by digital images.” As time went by, his figures became more refined, as if unfolding with each passing painting; necks, wrists and hands elongated in poses that remind us of the men portrayed by Pontormo, Bronzino and Parmigianino. There are no women in this series of paintings and the generally male figures are treated with an avowed mannerist femininity. “Men are my subject, without thinking in terms of gender, but rather in terms of this belief: every painting is a self-portrait.”

So, what is Justin Liam O’Brien’s essentially narrative painting seeking to tell us? In what or in whom does he believe? Perhaps a world of men united by the idea of redemptive love, a queer community of disciples of whom he would be the “creator.” His first exhibition at Semiose bears witness to the “honeymoon period” of this highly original world, where people fall in love as if for the very first time. When asked where the title came from, Justin replied: “On Valentine’s Day, I wrote a poem in an attempt to find a coherent vision for this series of paintings:
All sunsets risen,
the heavens and earth merged.
Can you measure such a space?
As it expands and contracts
What about hope?
Can you measure hope?”

So, is it possible to measure hope? Yes, you just have to believe.

— Laurent Goumarre