Justin Liam O’Brien (b. 1991, lives and works in Brooklyn) is a narrative painter and as part of a lineage of queer artists, he explores the subjects of identity, isolation, sadness and humor in a changing world.

His very particular style of painting is immediately recognizable through its rounded forms, typical of the computer software he used as a 3D animator. O’Brien portrays characters, mainly male, within spaces inspired by his everyday life as well as historical painting. His paintings reveal the psychological dimension between bodies and architecture, the solitude of an individual in an apartment or in the setting of a crowd.

In 2019, a visit to the Louvre in Paris “literally changed (his) life and certainly (his) way of painting.” Five years later, All Sunsets Risen showcases the resulting grace of the dual movement of liberation: that of leaving the screen behind, as if coming out of the closet, integrating queer culture onto canvases that speak of masculine tastes depicted in a classical tradition.