Meet self-taught watercolorist Justin Frehs.
Justin’s first art memory was when he was about four years old, and his parents handed him a stack of old-fashioned IBM computer paper, with the instruction to draw. There was plenty of influence at home, as his father was a graduate of OSU, specializing in oils and photography. It wasn’t long before he developed an identity as “the artist,” and was being asked by his classmates to draw their favorite logos and video game characters. His teachers even laminated his desk at school (on which he was often drawing) so that they could clean it more easily. By third grade, he was drawing portraits, and all he would hear from people was, “you’re going to be an artist.”
By the time Justin got to high school, he had developed enough skill to attract the attention of classmate Ken Coulter. Ken was a senior, Justin was a freshman, and Ken, who was attending Fort Hayes part time (and later on CCAD), told Justin, “You’re better than I was at your age, and I just got a scholarship to CCAD.” Ken and Justin would draw and paint together, with Ken sharing his assignments from Fort Hayes. “That’s when I knew I wanted to be an artist.”
That’s also when Justin’s interests shifted, and he began to be drawn to skater/punk rock culture, and hung out with ravers, who introduced him to psychedelics. Without condoning using them, he does attribute a lot of his style as an artist to his experiences with them. One night some girls invited Justin to hang out with them down near Campus. He ended up going to a rave with them, and from that point on, never lived with his dad again.
Justin liked to hang out at the Idiot Boy Café on High Street, an environment full of artists. He would sit there, chain smoke and draw for hours on end. His mother, who had previously been living with Justin’s stepdad in Leesburg, Virginia, had broken up with him and moved back to Youngstown, Ohio. She was able to get Justin to move back in with her, and he started his sophomore year at Austintown Fitch High School. It was there that he was introduced to Karen Weinberg, who recognized and help to cultivate his abilities. She would arrange for other teachers to send academic work to her classroom where Justin, working in a space set up for him alone, would spend most of his day.
Karen helped to build his skills working with a subject using a variety of styles—hyperrealism, cubism, impressionism, expressionism, and abstractionism—while having him cross over multiple media—oils, watercolors, oil pastels and ink. “If she saw something that I hated, that I didn’t want to do, that’s what I had to do for even longer! She would say, that’s how you overcome this, that’s how you become a better artist. You don’t stay in that comfort zone.” This tenacity would serve Justin well later on, as he developed his skills painting challenging commissions using reference photos, some of which could be in less-than-optimal condition, or not very high quality.
For a brief period at the beginning of Justin’s Junior year, he and his mother moved back to Leesburg, as she attempted to reunite with Justin’s stepdad. An issue involving conflict between Justin and his stepfather over drugs ended up with Justin being assaulted by him, passing out, and waking up the next day in Youngstown with his mother, not having remembered how they got there.
Justin was back under the care of Karen Weinberg at Austintown Fitch, as she continued to encourage his artistic development. As his interest in raves became stronger, he developed skill as a Deejay, and would get paid working raves by lying about his age. It was there that he most strongly was influenced by pop and gay culture, house music, and fashion. In spite of being accepted into CCAD, Pratt, and Parsons, with only six months left before high school graduation he ran away with a girl, got an apartment, and became fully immersed in the underground world of raves.
It was during this period that Justin obtained a job at a local sign shop, and developed skill in graphic design. After finishing his work though, he always wanted to do more, and would sneak off to the shop’s art store where he would draw something, scan it on the computer, touch it up, print it on vinyl, and make large three-dimensional pieces using poster board.
Justin also had been, and continued to be associated with Coy Cornelius, who operated an artist center in Youngstown, and had converted a large warehouse into studios for local artists, many of whom were studying at Youngstown State. His sister had been taking him there since he was very young, and later on Justin would attend raves there. This added even more layers of influence to the art he created, along with the experience in graphic design.
In 2000, on a whim Justin applied for a job with MCI, and got the job. He moved up in the company very quickly. While he was employed there, an unfortunate dental appointment resulted in him becoming addicted to opiates. The company paid for his rehabilitation, and Justin returned to work until 2003, when it folded and Justin found himself unemployed. For the next eleven years, Justin basically didn’t paint, and eventually became addicted to heroin. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, he was able to begin Suboxone treatment in 2009, and start his recovery process. In 2014, he moved to a recovery facility in Youngstown where he lived for 14 months.
At the beginning of that stay, his father communicated with him, and basically told him to “pull himself out of it.” He also sent Justin a box of watercolors, some paper, and paintbrushes. Justin had nothing else to do, so he began to paint. It didn’t take long before the other residents began to take notice of his work, and some of them shared it on social media. Justin started selling paintings for anywhere from $50 to $125. He would sell work as fast as he could produce it.
It was during this period in which he met his partner Lena, who commissioned him to paint for her. He had finally moved back to Columbus, and was getting tired of being on Suboxone, which included regular drives back to Youngstown for appointments with a physician, so in 2015, Justin made a decision to go off of Suboxone cold turkey. He recalls the opening of Gabinetto Segreto at the Vanderelli Room, curated by Alan Reeve, and how that was his second day off of Suboxone, having to smile and shake hands with so many people, while dying inside of withdrawal symptoms.
From this point on, Justin’s reemergence into the art world only accelerated.
Justin has a complex, meticulous process for painting. When he begins, he goes into a mode which he refers to as “art brain”. He can’t talk, eat, drive, or communicate well. “I see everything as basic geometry.”
After Justin has spent a long time examining a reference image, he typically takes a whole day (about eight hours) to sketch the drawing which will become the painting, constantly measuring, checking, remeasuring, staring at shapes over and over, sometimes throwing whole sketches away and starting over. The whole sketch is created completely freehand.
To complete a 12” x 16” painting typically takes Justin between twelve and fifteen hours.
On the emergence of his signature painting style:
“I had other friends, they were like, you need to let yourself go, don’t care if people like it, and that’s when you’re really going to develop your own style. Completely let go. That’s hard for an artist to do.”
“I wanted to figure out ways how I could fill in all these boring, bland, solid spaces. How can I make this more interesting other than just throwing in one solid color?”
“People like watercolors because they’re so opaque and you can layer them, so I just started doing that like crazy, and it was a happy accident, as Bob Ross would say.”
On growing as an artist: “I’m never happy with what I create or where I’m at. I feel like I’m going to throw up before I paint every time. I get so nervous. I look at each piece like here goes another journey, like a car ride across the country. Here we go. And once I start going, you know, of course it all comes together, and it’s all natural.”