Justine Ashbee

Seattleite Justine Ashbee should be the celebrity spokesperson for Sharpie. A 2004 RISD graduate, Justine has been creating her intricate and lively work with the never-fail pens for much of her career — one that has been propelling her out of her home state and into California, New Mexico, and New York galleries for the past several years. The best reason for this is probably the lifelike quality of her work, with each piece seeming to breathe of its own accord, forming depths more often found in painstaking oil portraiture, as opposed to the workings of a $3 pen. Justine’s work, aside from its beauty, also enthralls the viewer by means of its organic quality. Each piece starts as simple curve, and continues to grow through an organic flow, unencumbered by the marks or traces that frequently guide other artists from start to finish. Sharpies, as we all know, are very permanent pens, so the fact that Justine works through this method just about floors me. No word on any upcoming gallery openings, but if any of our Seattle readers have seen her work in person, please drop us a line and tell us about it!